Billionaire investor Leonard Blavatnik bought an apartment on New York’s Fifth Avenue for $77.5 million, a record price for a Manhattan co-op.
The seller of unit 1112A at 834 Fifth Ave. was Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets National Football League team, according to New York City property records dated March 24.
The sale tops the previous co-op record set six months ago when Israel Englander, the founder and chief executive officer of hedge-fund firm Millennium Management, bought a duplex on Park Avenue for $71.3 million.
“There’s a correlation between records repeatedly broken and billionaires looking at properties across the globe,” Jonathan Miller, president of appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. said in an interview. “This is about ‘I want this property, I want it now, and I can afford it.’”
Blavatnik is founder and chairman of Access Industries, a holding company whose assets include Warner Music Group and a stake in LyondellBasell Industries NV, the world’s largest producer of polypropylene. He has a net worth of $18.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
A spokesman for Access Industries, Christopher Beattie, declined to comment on the purchase. A spokeswoman at the Johnson Co. wasn’t immediately available.
The apartment is one of 24 units in building, located between 64th and 65th streets and completed in 1931, according to listings and data website CityRealty.com. The smallest unit is 4,000 square feet (372 square meters).
There was no public listing for the apartment purchased by Blavatnik. Miller said original floor plans for the building show 1112A as a 6,700-square-foot home with 13 rooms, including four bedrooms and 6.5 baths.
New York luxury-home prices rose 19 percent last year, beating cities around the world, as a growing number of upscale projects drew overseas buyers, according to the “Wealth Report” released this month by brokerage Knight Frank.
The record for a New York residential sale was set in December, when the purchase of a penthouse at Extell Development Co.’s One57 condominium tower closed at $100.5 million. Chetrit Group plans to ask $150 million for a triplex at its condo conversion of Sony Corp.’s New York headquarters, making it the city’s most expensive listing.
