Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Not only is the conglomerate Greenland Holding Group, parent of Atlantic Yards developer (for now) Greenland USA, dropping in both the Fortune Global 500 and Forbes Global 2000, the credit rating agency Moody's is notably unenthusiastic. On April 1, it announced it had conducted a review of Greenland's Ca corporate family rating (as well as associated companies), and said the rating and the negative outlook remain unchanged. Ca is second-lowest in Moody's eleven-notch category of junk, described as "obligations likely, or very near, default, with some prospect of recovery in principal and interest." (The bottom rung, C, offers "little prospect" of recovery.) The downgrade to Ca, as I wrote , was in July 2023. Tough times "Greenland Holding's Ca corporate family rating (CFR) reflects the company's weak liquidity with history of payment default, and our expectation of weak recovery prospects for Greenland Holding's bondholders," s...

Fortune magazine recently released its 2025 Global 500 list, with Greenland Holding Group, the Shanghai-based parent of (for now) main Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer Greenland USA, plunging further than before, to #480 , from #291  in 2024  and #205  in 2023 . (Greenland USA has since November 2023 been facing foreclosure of its collateral, rights to six towers over the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard, but somehow will remain a junior partner. It also is slated to be a junior partner in the project planned for Site 5, catercorner to the arena.) That strongly reverses an ascent, in which Greenland had in 2022  reached  #125, part of a steady rise. Greenland had closer to its  stated  (in 2014) ambition to reach the top 100 by 2020. Next year, if the current trend continues, Greenland might exit the Global 500. Screenshot from Fortune, annotated Like many property developers in China, Greenland overextended itself, piling on debt, and ...

Shanghai-based Greenland Holdings, parent of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer (for now) Greenland USA, has further continued its slide in the annual  Forbes Global 2000 list , this year ranked at #931, down from #891 in 2024 and well below its peak of #307. Last year, as I wrote , it was at #831 (or #832). It represented the second straight loss for the company--the first ones since Forbes started compiling records in 2017. So the losses drag down the #349 ranking in sales and #267 ranking in assets. Forbes ranks the world's largest companies in the world using four metrics: sales, profits, assets and market value. The better known Fortune Global 500 ranking, which should be released in August, relies solely on revenue in the past fiscal year. Screenshot from Forbes The bottom line: though Greenland  was billed  when it came into the project in 2014 has having deep pockets, that situation is far away.  No wonder its U.S. subsidiary since November ...

The latest Chinese-language annual audit ( link ) from Shanghai-based Greenland Holdings Group, the parent of troubled Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer Greenland USA, offers little clarity on the future of the project. Surprisingly, though, it suggests that Greenland might have some chance to retain the six railyard development sites (B5-B10) facing foreclosure since November 2023. The passage at right states, in machine translation:  2. Among the current long-term loans of American Commercial Holdings (Pacific Park Project in New York), the EB-5 loans to AYB Funding 100, LLC and AYB Funding 200, LLC will expire on June 30, 2023 (a total of US$285 million, worth RMB 2 billion), and the loan collateral is the platform land and B5-B10 development rights. The lender officially launched the asset disposal procedure in January 2024. After continuous negotiations between the Group and the lender, the lender has continuously postponed the auction process, with the latest postponement...

Well, I missed this Nov. 27, 2013 article,  Brooklyn, Shanghai hook up ‏, in state-owned China Daily. It covered the signing of a "friendship agreement" between Brooklyn and Shanghai's Putuo district.  The photo shows Cheng Xiangmin, Governor of Shanghai's Putuo District, exchanging gifts with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, with Assemblymember Peter Abbate , who at that point  represented the Chinese-dominant eastern section of Sunset Park and the Chinese-ascendant neighborhood of Bensonhurst. Unmentioned in the caption is Winnie Greco, Markowitz's unpaid but influential self-proclaimed Director, China-U.S. Affairs Department , who went on to serve Borough President and then Mayor Eric Adams before falling under federal investigation .  Also unmentioned: the "friendship arch"--between Brooklyn and Beijing, not Shanghai--that the Borough Presidents championed, with Greco as leader of a nonprofit, but which never got built . The Atlantic Yard...

In July 2023, ratings agency Moody's  downgraded  its  rating  of Greenland Holding Group, the parent of Atlantic Yards developer (for now) Greenland USA, two notches from Caa2 to Ca, which  it says  is "highly speculative, or near default. Was there any update? I recently checked. On April 26, 2024, Moody's--the only ratings agency to assess Greenland, as  S&P withdrew  at the company's request, and  Fitch withdrew  "for commercial reasons"--affirmed that same rating in an  update  to the credit analysis. The rating "reflects the company's weak liquidity with history of payment default, and our expectation of weak recovery prospects for Greenland Holding's bondholders," while acknowledging "the company's large operations with geographic and product diversification in China and weak financial metrics." The rating outlook was negative, given that Moody's said it expected key metrics, such as the amount of debt and the ra...

Fortune magazine last week  released its 2024 Global 500 list, with Greenland Holding Group, the Shanghai-based parent of (for now) main Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer Greenland USA, plunging to #291, after plummeting in 2023 to #205. That reverses an ascent, in which Greenland had in 2022 reached #125, part of a steady rise. Greenland had closer to its stated (in 2014) ambition to reach the top 100 by 2020. Now, if the current trend continues, Greenland might exit the Global 500 in a few years. Screenshot from Fortune Like many property developers in China, Greenland overextended itself, piling on debt, and seeing its credit rating plummet . Dropping revenue, new losses The well-known Fortune Global 500 ranking relies solely on revenue in the past fiscal year. Greenland had $50.9 billion in revenue, a 21.5% decline from 2023's $64.8 billion in revenue, after reaching $84.5 billion in 2022. Though not part of the ranking, it's worth noting that Greenland's profi...

This is the third of three articles on Greenland USA finances related to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park.  The  first  concerned Greenland's impairment, or loss in value. The second concerned what Greenland paid Forest City in the 2018 ownership reshuffle, and what happened to Site 5. Remember the April 23, 2019  press release , headlined "Greenland Forest City Partners and The Brodsky Organization Announce Partnership to Develop 18 Sixth Avenue at Pacific Park," which said the "joint venture" would immediately commence construction. At that point, they were using the term Greenland Forest City Partners, reflecting a joint venture in which Greenland had gained a 95% share. A March 22, 2019 document from the city's online ACRIS database,  cited a transaction valued at $194,745,462 . As far as I can tell, that was the full value of the parcel, not the payment by Brodsky.  After all, TF Cornerstone and Brodsky  paid  $199 million, in total, for lea...

This is the second of three articles on Greenland USA finances related to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. The first concerned Greenland's large impairment (loss in value).  The  third  concerned Forest City's giving up its shares in the B4 tower and future Site 5 project. A Forest City Realty Trust press release June 28, 2018, Forest City, Greenland Close Restructuring of Pacific Park Brooklyn Partnership , indicated, that, as previously announced, Greenland USA would acquire all but 5% of Forest City Ratner/Forest City Realty Trust's ownership interest in Pacific Park going forward. No price was announced. While some, including me, unwisely used the term "buy," the press release didn't specify a sale, or a price. As I describe below, evidence--neither confirmed nor denied--suggests that Forest City simply gave it away, to avoid further losses. That press release carefully cited a "restructuring" that took "Greenland USA's ownership interest i...

This is the first of three articles on Greenland USA finances related to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park.  The  second  concerned what Greenland paid Forest City in the 2018 ownership reshuffle, and what happened to Site 5. The third concerned Forest City's giving up its shares in the B4 tower and future Site 5 project. An audit of Greenland Holding Group, the Shanghai-based parent of Greenland USA, indicates that, as of the end of 2023, the firm recognized an impairment--a loss in value--of nearly $391 million from its investment in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. That indicates the impact of project delays and helps explain why there's been no revenue, or cushion, to pay back outstanding loans, now facing foreclosure, under the EB-5 investor visa program.  Though the impairment is substantial, it's little more than half of the $732 million in impairments, as detailed below, suffered by original developer Forest City Enterprises/Forest City Realty Trust on the project. Th...

In Brooklyn, (l.-r.) Borough President Eric Adams,  Greenland's Xu Jing, Borough Hall Liaison Winnie Greco The June 25 New York Post scoop, Feds probing Eric Adams and top adviser’s trips to China , sent me back to the limited evidence I have about a trip that Brooklyn Borough President Adams, now Mayor, and his advisor and Chinese community liaison Winnie Greco made May 22-June 1, 2014. The current Borough President's office was unable to produce any emails regarding the trip. I have a few involving Greco, not Adams, the result of a Freedom of Information Law request I filed in 2014. Evidence, albeit inconclusive, suggests that Greco was not using an official email address from the Borough President's office. The most interesting thing I (re)discovered was Greco's bombastic email signature file, declaring herself--according to a machine translation--"Director, China-U.S. Affairs Department" of the "Brooklyn Borough Government, New York, USA." I expl...

Shanghai-based Greenland Holdings, parent of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developer (for now) Greenland USA, has continued its slide in the annual Forbes Global 2000 lists, this year ranked at #891, after once peaking at #307. Last year, it was at #831 (or #832). It was the first annual loss for the company, at least since Forbes started compiling records in 2017. Forbes ranks the world's largest companies in the world using four metrics: sales, profits, assets and market value. The better known Fortune Global 500 ranking, which should be released in August, relies solely on revenue in the past fiscal year. The bottom line is this is a company not with deep pockets, as it was billed coming into the project in 2014, but rather suffering financially. No wonder its U.S. subsidiary, after seeing progress with its Brooklyn project stall, faces a foreclosure auction of the rights to six railyard development sites. Losing money From Forbes The Greenland ranking  indicates that, in the mo...