Kushner Cos. is in advanced talks to receive a bailout of its struggling flagship office tower, 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, from Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian firm whose real estate arm, Brookfield Property Partners, is partly owned by Qatar's sovereign investment fund, The New York Times reports. Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior White House adviser, was Kushner Cos. CEO in 2007 when his family company purchased the aluminum-clad 41-story building for a record $1.8 billion, but it has lost money ever since. Today, 30 percent of the building is vacant and it brings in only about half of Kushner Cos. annual mortgage payment.
Kushner gave up control of Kushner Cos. when he joined the White House and divested himself of assets including 666 Fifth Avenue. But his elevation to the White House helped scuttle negotiations with Chinese insurance company Anbang and former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jasim al-Thani. Kushner Cos. subsequent global search for financing for 666 Fifth Avenue has run into criticism over potential conflicts of interest or foreign influence on a top White House adviser.
Qatar Investment Authority is the second-largest investor in Brookfield Property Partners, after Brookfield Asset Management, but the company said Thursday that "no Qatar-linked entity has any involvement in, investment in, or even knowledge of this potential transaction." The list of investors in the deal "is not possible to independently verify," The Washington Post reports, and the details are not expected to be made public if the deal closes.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
If the deal goes through, Brookfield reportedly plans to replace the aluminum exterior with glass, renovate the lobby, and put in new elevators. Kushner Cos. would retain some stake.
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Sudoku medium: August 23, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
