The Financial Times reported last week that the Pakistan government “thwarted” an attempt by JPMorgan Chase to buy the Roosevelt Hotel. There was only one question:
What attempt?
According to the FT, Pakistan International Airlines, the Roosevelt’s nominal owner, chose to “pursue a redevelopment plan that would transform the site into a high-rise project while allowing Islamabad to keep a stake in the property.”
But PIA’s intentions were long known. Moreover, we found no previous mention other than rumors that JPMorgan Chase was seriously pursuing the property. Even so, other outlets parroted the FT’s story as if the bank’s supposed campaign was a long-established fact.
After JLL resigned or was pushed out as PIA’s advisor two years ago, PIA was reported last fall to be weighing fresh proposals from seven different groups to advise on the Roosevelt’s future. The team in the lead, we reported, was led by Morgan Stanley — not by JPMorgan Chase.
Moreover, last month’s puzzling agreement between Pakistan and the US General Services Administration to cooperate on the Roosevelt wasn’t only about “maintaining and renovating” it, as the FT said, but about redeveloping it.
The Roosevelt site between Madison and Vanderbilt avenues in the East 40s is valuable and its development issues are complex, but it is not the Louisiana Purchase. If PIA and JPMorgan Chase – or anyone else — wanted to make a deal, they had only to sit down and sign the papers.
The truth is, nobody truly knows what the Pakistanis want to do with the Roosevelt — if they even know themselves.
