Francois-Xavier de Mallmann, a London-based partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., bought an apartment on Manhattan’s Park Avenue for $13 million, 13 percent less than what its owners initially sought.
The deal for the four-bedroom co-op at 730 Park Ave., near 71st Street, was completed on Dec. 26, according to New York City property records made public today. The apartment was once home to Richard Mack, chief executive officer of AREA Property Partners LP’s North America division. Mack transferred the property in 2011 to his wife, Christine, who was listed as the seller, property records show.
The 4,300-square-foot (400-square-meter) property includes a library, a staff room and a hallway “ideal for displaying your art collection,” according to the Corcoran Group brokerage listing posted on StreetEasy.com. “An outstanding layout with spectacular entertainment space and grand rooms.”
The deal was completed amid a surge in year-end luxury-home transactions made before an expected jump in capital-gains taxes on Jan. 1. There were more sales of Manhattan luxury property in the last three months of 2012 than in any other fourth quarter since at least 1989, when New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. began tracking the data.
Luxury sales, defined as the top 10 percent of transactions by price, jumped 29 percent from a year earlier to 260, based on data Miller Samuel collected from public records through Dec. 31. The figures capture 85 percent of all such deals in the quarter and will climb higher as purchases completed in the final days of last month are reported with the city finance department, said Jonathan Miller, the appraiser’s president.
Mack declined to comment on the deal. De Mallmann, Goldman Sachs’s head of investment banking services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, didn’t return an e-mail. Michael DuVally, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, declined to comment.
The apartment de Mallmann purchased was first listed for sale in April for $15 million, according to StreetEasy. The asking price was reduced to $13.5 million in October.
De Mallmann, 42, joined Goldman Sachs in 1993 and became a partner in 2004, one year after being named a managing director. He was head of the European financing group before taking his current job in 2011. He has French and Swiss citizenship, according to a Goldman Sachs filing in November.
