Downtown Capital Partners Moves to Take Control of All Year’s Assets
By Chava Gourarie December 17, 2021 10:51 am
reprints
Downtown Capital Partners is making a move to take over several properties in All Year Holdings’ portfolio, after the latter filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week, according to documents filed with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Downtown Capital has the two preferred equity positions on All Year properties totaling $70 million: one on a development property at 429 Smith Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and a second one on a portfolio of properties that includes two completed multifamily assets, The Dean in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and The Delmar in Long Island City, Queens.
White Plains-based Downtown Capital sent a letter to All Year informing the firm that Downtown Capital would be taking control of All Year Equity Partners, which controls the three properties mentioned above, and requested that All Year hand over all the financial books relating to it, according to a document filed on TASE Thursday.
The move is the latest domino to fall as All Year’s empire rapidly collapses. The company was in advanced talks to restructure its $1.6 billion debt and sell off much of its portfolio, but then All Year and its founder, Yoel Goldman, were hit with a $37 million judgment from TAZ Capital earlier this month, and without the money to pay for it, All Year filed for bankruptcy to avoid insolvency.
This is the first skirmish in what’s expected to be a long battle over All Year’s portfolio, which numbers over 100 buildings, said David Goldwasser, a restructuring expert who’s involved with the proceedings. With a web of tangled claims from lenders, equity partners, bondholders — some of them contradictory — it is unlikely that the restructuring deal being pursued with a joint venture between Island Capital and Jesselson Capital will come to fruition.
It is also likely that the Downtown claim will get wrapped in the broader bankruptcy proceeding, as All Year cannot relinquish assets without permission from the court.
Not included in the bankruptcy is the Denizen, a massive rental development in Bushwick that sold to Atlas Capital Group for $506 million earlier this month, and the William Vale hotel in Williamsburg, where Israeli bondholders hold the first position.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that David Goldwasser is a restructuring expert, not a lawyer as previously stated.
Chava Gourarie can be reached at cgourarie@commercialobserver.com.
