Financially Strapped NY Mets' Owners To Dodge Foreclosure; Agree To Deed-In-Lieu

The Wall Street Journal reports:

• The real-estate investment management business controlled by besieged Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz is giving up a struggling Long Island office- building complex to its creditors, according to a person familiar with the matter.
• Facing a foreclosure, a venture led by Sterling American Property Inc. is set to hand the keys of Woodlands Office Park, a 127,000-square-foot complex bought near the top of the market, to its mortgage holder, the person said.
• The debt on the building, which had a balance of $12.7 million last summer, had been carved up into commercial mortgage backed securities after it was issued. It was being managed by ORIX Capital Markets, a special servicer. Gregory Nero, Sterling American's general counsel, declined to comment on the imminent transfer, known in the real-estate business as a "deed in lieu of foreclosure."

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• Messrs. Wilpon and Katz, of course, are dealing with other challenges much bigger than the loss of one complex by their real estate fund division. They face a $1 billion lawsuit filed by the trustee representing the victims of convicted Ponzi schemer, Bernard Madoff, claiming they should have known about the fraud.

For more, see Mets Owners Set to Turn Over Property.