Delayed Sale of Transamerica Pyramid Fetches $650M

SAN FRANCISCO—The Transamerica Pyramid finally has a new owner. The sale marks the first time the skyscraper has sold since it opened in 1972.

A group led by New York developer Michael Shvo and Deutsche Finance America completed a previously announced acquisition of the building from Aegon NV. The partners bought the building with a group of European investors, including German pension fund Bayerische Versorgungskammer, according to Bloomberg.

The purchase price was $650 million for the 48-story tower and two nearby buildings at 505 Sansome St. and 545 Sansome St., which is a potential development site. The three buildings total approximately 760,000 square feet.

The purchase price for the Transamerica complex is a discount from the roughly $700 million that Shvo and Deutsche Finance negotiated before COVID took hold in the United States.

The pandemic has forced many companies to adopt work from home policies and re-evaluate future office needs, with San Francisco having one of the most dramatic reversals of any US market. Prior to COVID, tech companies were gobbling up limited space and driving up rents.

However, in recent months, the city’s available office space has doubled as companies look to sublease previously rented space, according to a recent CBRE report. Between the first and third quarters, class-A office rent dropped about 8%, says the report.

The JLL Capital Markets team representing the seller was led by senior managing directors Gerry Rohm, Michael Leggett, Robert Hielscher and Michael Seifer, and senior directors David Dokko and Erik Hanson. Financing efforts for the sale of the complex were led by senior managing director Peter Smyslowski, executive managing director Mike Tepedino, and managing directors Robert Tonnessen and David Sitt.