Lenders led by Goldman Sachs have scheduled a Nov. 24 foreclosure auction of Radford Studio Center, the 55-acre Studio City lot that Culver City-based Hackman Capital Partners bought for about $1.85 billion in 2021, the Business Journal has learned.
The lenders are seeking $1.3 billion, according to a notice of trustee’s sale recorded Oct. 28 in L.A. County. First American Title Insurance Co., acting as trustee for Goldman Sachs Bank USA, will auction the property at 11 a.m. in the courtyard of the Civic Center Plaza in Pomona, but that date could be postponed.
The auction could clear the way for a long-rumored sale to streaming giant Netflix Inc. The filing shows Hackman still holds title to the lot nearly 10 months after the beleaguered Hollywood landlord told investors it would hand the property back to its lenders, as Bloomberg reported in January.
The deal dragged on in part because Netflix didn’t want to buy the note and go through foreclosure itself, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. Instead, the streamer asked Goldman, as lead lender, to foreclose and pay the Los Angeles mansion tax, the source said.
A representative for Hackman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Goldman declined to comment. Netflix could not be reached for comment.
Just a few months ago, Netflix was under contract to buy Radford for close to $400 million, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter, the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg reported in June. The sale would wipe out close to two-thirds of Hackman’s debt tied to the property. But no sale has closed and the securitized portion of the loan was still listed at full balance in October, according to Morningstar Credit.
From $1.85 billion bet to default
Radford, a one-time silent movie lot formerly known as CBS Studio Center, has 22 soundstages and more than 1 million square feet of space. “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Seinfeld” were all filmed there.
ViacomCBS, now Skydance agreed in December 2021 to sell the lot to Hackman and its investment partner, Affinius Capital. Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo provided a $1.1 billion loan that month, according to property records. About $395.2 million of that debt was later sold to bond investors in a commercial mortgage-backed securities deal, according to Morningstar Credit.
Hackman unveiled plans in 2023 for a $1 billion makeover of the lot.
But production in Los Angeles slowed sharply after the pandemic and the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, and the lot’s income fell. Radford’s net operating income dropped to $15.6 million in 2025, from the $59.7 million projected when the loan was underwritten, according to Morningstar Credit data. That covered just 19% of its debt payments, and occupancy fell to 42% at the end of 2025 before rebounding to 71% in the first quarter.
“Media giants like Amazon Prime and Netflix were doing productions in their own space,” said Chris Meyer, a primary analyst at Morningstar Credit who tracks the loan. “Hackman is essentially a landlord.”
The loan, which first came due in January 2024, was extended to June 9, 2025. But Hackman did not repay it, and Goldman recorded a notice of default on Jan. 8, claiming $1.2 billion in unpaid debt. The amount claimed in the new notice is slightly higher.
“We’ve made the difficult decision to inform the lenders that we must pause further efforts to complete the restructuring,” Hackman’s HCP Studio Fund told investors in a letter shared with Bloomberg in January. “While disappointing, we do not see a realistic alternative.”
At the time, options under discussion included a deed in lieu of foreclosure, in which a borrower voluntarily surrenders a property to its lenders. The notice of sale shows the lenders are instead pursuing a public foreclosure auction. The sale will include the lot’s fixtures, leases, rents and contracts along with the land.
“The big takeaway is just how quickly things unraveled,” Meyer said. “This was a very large $1.1 billion loan. A lot of thought was put into underwriting this, but it fell apart so fast.”
Holders of the securitized portion of the debt could lose about $253 million if the lot sells for about $400 million, as previously reported.
A string of defaults
Radford is one of several Hackman studio properties now in the hands of lenders or headed there.
Fortress Investment Group took back the former Sony Pictures Animation campus in Culver City with a $71.3 million credit bid at a foreclosure auction in August. Lenders have recorded notices of default on Hackman’s Television City and Manhattan Beach studio properties, and Deutsche Bank sued in March to foreclose on Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York.
In August, a creditor group including BlackRock’s HPS Investment Partners and Oaktree Capital Management took control of the MBS Group, the production services company Hackman bought in 2019, the Financial Times reported.
“We have a couple deals that we just made mistakes on, and we’re going to lose a lot of money on those properties, but that happens,” Michael Hackman, the firm’s founder and chief executive, said at a Bisnow conference in June, according to The Real Deal. “We’ve accepted it, and now we’re moving on.”
