Following its acquisition of an iconic piece of real estate at the heart of Los Angeles, the downtown-based Oaktree Capital Management announced that it has closed on a loan extension that will free up capital for leasing and operations.
The asset management firm acquired 444 S. Flower St. — a 48-story, 914,000-square foot tower near the U.S. Bank tower — from downtown-based Coretrust Capital Partners in a foreclosure auction on Jan. 30.
The terms of that acquisition have not been disclosed.
Coretrust Capital Partners had acquired the building in 2016 — then known as the Citigroup Center — for $336 million and borrowed $230 million from the Bank of China not long after to support the purchase.
Oaktree late last month said the loan extension “paves the pathway to fund competitive new leases, spec suites and amenities to the building.”
The company says the real estate management servicer Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. helped secure the extension, “which will contribute to the funding of future projects at the building,” the company noted.
Following the foreclosure, JLL’s Hayley Blockley, Josh Wrobel and Peter Hajimihalis were retained to lease the property, while real estate and investment firm CBRE Group Inc. was hired to run property management. Since the acquisition, the new ownership team has secured leases totaling 90,000 square feet.
“Oaktree has been a constant presence in DTLA for nearly three decades and is excited to invest directly into an office project that is in our backyard,” Justin Guichard, managing director and co-portfolio manager of Oaktree, said in a statement.
Brookfield Asset Management, which is the parent company of Oaktree, owns a number of other office buildings downtown.
