Tudor, Adage Capital among hedge funds making bets on NYC office space

By David Randall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Basswood Capital, Adage Capital Partners and Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp were among the hedge funds that took new positions in real estate investment trusts that specialize in New York City office space last quarter, despite questions over how long work-from-home policies will weigh on the market, securities filings released on Monday showed.

Basswood Capital purchased roughly 360,000 shares of Vornado Realty Trust and nearly 72,000 shares of SL Green, while Adage Capital Partners bought 205,000 shares of SL Green. Tudor Investment Corp bought nearly 152,000 shares of SL Green.

Shares of Vornado are up nearly 7% for the year to date, while shares of SL Green are up slightly less than 1%.

Overall, the New York City office market remained depressed in the second quarter, with the total amount of leased space down 25% from its five-year pre-pandemic average, brokerage data provided to Reuters showed.

Nationwide, nearly $12 billon of loans in U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) became newly delinquent in July, pushing the late payment rate up by 34 basis points from the month before to 3.93%, credit rating agency KBRA said in a report.

Basswood, Adage Capital, and Tudor Investment Corp did not respond to requests for comment.

The purchases were revealed in quarterly filings, known as 13-fs, that show a fund’s long positions and may not reflect current holdings. These filings are one of the few ways that institutional investors reveal their positions.

(Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Richard Chang)

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