According to an interesting piece in the Chicago edition of Sunday’s New York Times, Abu Dhabi owns a 28% stake in Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, the current concessionaire of the 37,000+ metered spaces of Chicago’s on street parking system.
The article says the Persian Gulf emirate, and part of the United Arab Emirates, own around 25% of CPM directly through Tannadice Investments, LLC, and another 3% via a group investment in Morgan Stanley’s 50.1% interest in CPM.
The piece alleges that Abu Dhabi’s stake in the deal was not disclosed initially last December when the deal was voted on in the city council, but eventually was revealed when the finacial deal closed in February 2009.
Outside of being an interesting morsel of information from a well researched and reported news article, I’m not sure if there’s actually anything controversial here.
International investment in Chicago is nothing new.
The Chicago Skyway is now controlled by a joint venture between Australian Macquarie Infrastructure Group and Spanish Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte S.A.
The Sears Tower was recently purchased by British insurance company Willis Group Holdings, Ltd who sources claim are contemplating a name change for Chicago’s tallest building.
Whether or not the investors are from Abu Dhabi or from Mars, it changes nothing about the parking meter lease deal. No matter who is an investor in Chicago’s parking meter lease deal, it is still bad for motorists and the City of Chicago.
Read the entire piece, “Abu Dhabi Shares Profits From Parking Meters.”
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The Sears tower was not purchased by the Willis Group, they simply leased some (relatively small) space in the building and received naming rights. The name change was completed this summer.
Yeah and I still call it Comiskey too.
This is the shady part:
I have bad reactions when they hide stuff like this.
If this news gets your panties in a twist, you’ve clearly never considered how much tax-free US real estate is held by various religions . . . not to mention that Asian holds the paper on 10+ Trillion dollars of our debt.
Any money flowing to the Middle East eventually trickles into the hands of terrorists. It’s bad enough gas money gets there, there’s no need to feed the bin Laden wannabes additional quarters.
Joe-
Thanks for the correction on the ownership of the Sears Tower.
I do know the Sears Tower is no longer the Sears Tower.
I was just trying to make a lame joke.
The Geek will NEVER call the Sears Tower by any other name than the Sears Tower, for the same reason I refuse to shop at Macy’s aka Marshall Field’s.
Thanks PTG, I am totally with you, it is always Sears Tower to me.
I work in real estate, and can’t believe they got naming rights in such a large building for only leasing a few floors.
Reminds me of another deal where someone got a big asset for a low price…