Editors’ Note

Peter Malkin is general partner or manager in investment entities that own and operate approximately 11,400,000 square feet of office, showroom, and retail space and 2,700 apartment units. Malkin is the Founding Chairman of the Grand Central Partnership, Inc. and of the 34th Street Partnership, Inc. and a Founder and Director of The Fashion Center Business Improvement District. Malkin is Co-Chair of the Real Estate and Construction Council of Lincoln Center, Co-Chairman Emeritus of the Real Estate Council of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chairman of the Dean’s Council of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Co-Founder and Honorary Co-Chair of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, a Director Emeritus of U.S. Trust Corporation, a member of the Board of Advisors for Bank of America Global Wealth Investment Management, a Vice President and Director of the Realty Foundation of New York and a Partner in the New York City Partnership, a Governor Emeritus of the Real Estate Board of New York, a former member of the Mayor’s Business Advisory Committee during the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and former member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College and Chairman of the Council of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Malkin received his B.A. Degree summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard College in 1955 and his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1958.

Company Brief

Malkin Holdings and its affiliate Malkin Securities Corp. (https://malkinsecurities.com) are recognized as the original and preeminent real estate syndicator in the United States. Lawrence A. Wien, the firm’s Co-Founder, with son-in-law Peter L. Malkin, assembled a portfolio of syndicated properties, including the Empire State Building. Malkin Securities sponsors investments exclusively with its affiliate Malkin Properties, an established leader in property acquisition, financing, asset and property management, marketing and leasing, and construction services. The firm’s investments, led by Peter L. Malkin and his son Anthony E. Malkin, maintain the family’s standard of careful, innovative programs that provide individuals, families, and other investors with current income, long-term capital appreciation potential, and estate planning advantages. Today, Malkin Holdings controls more than11 million square feet of trophy office property in the Greater New York area, and 1.9 million square feet of retail, 1.4 million square feet of warehouse/distribution, 2,700 multi-family units in 15 states, and Strategic Capital funds totaling $150,000,000 invested in Mezzanine preferred equity and subordinate debt.

Is there an effective awareness of the size and scale of the company and how important is brand recognition to you?

It is very important that the Malkin brand be recognized by tenants and leasing brokers. It is critical to have a reputation for a very high standard of operation and maintenance, and to have a very satisfied tenancy.

Years ago, we started paying 100 percent commission to brokers on the signing of leases. We were one of the first to do that because the brokers are the people who will bring tenants to our buildings.

We also make it easy for prospective tenants and their brokers to conclude deals with us. We do our own in-house marketing, leasing, management, legal, and construction, so we have a completely vertically oriented operation – we call it one-stop shopping. Prospective tenants and their brokers know they’ll find a very high level of service and highly satisfied tenants, and they find it easy to deal with our management and leasing people.

So brand is important to us, but it’s not so much a public market brand because we’re not public. But if we were, we’d be a fairly large force in the public market, and our brand name would be recognized among sophisticated real estate investors and potential shareholders.

This company has focused on philanthropy from the beginning. Where are the origins of that and how critical is it to Malkin’s culture?

The founder of our family business, Lawrence Wien, was very much involved in philanthropy. He started something in the 1970s called the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropic Giving, which Paul Newman and I reestablished 10 years ago as the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP). Over 150 CEOs of major public corporations are members.

Social responsibility is an essential requirement of business, and business has an obligation to care for and serve the communities in which it operates.

Companies that have a positive social responsibility image tend to do better, particularly if they’re consumer oriented and real estate is consumer oriented.

So not only do we contribute directly to organizations, but we also contribute employee time. Every year, we dedicate days of volunteer work to rehabilitating moderate income housing and assisting people who are infirm or disabled whose homes need an upgrade – we call it Christmas in Spring.

We also recently finished a 50-unit moderate income apartment property and broke ground on a second 50-unit moderate income property in Stamford, Connecticut. We will have a third building, which will be market rate, and then a 20-story office building, all part of a mixed-use development adjacent to the Stamford, Connecticut transportation center, which includes our existing premier office building, Metro Center. These 14 acres I bought sat for almost 20 years waiting for the right moment for environmentally sustainable, transit oriented development.

Is it challenging to get the message out?

This is a major thrust of CECP. We undertook the task of persuading CEOs of major corporations that corporate social responsibility is a best business practice and that they did not have to be afraid of shareholders seeing that as a negative.

We have been successful in that we have over 150 major corporations represented on the committee by their CEOs and another 20 or more graduate members who are recently retired CEOs. We are projecting the message that corporations are socially responsible.

Total giving by businesses has gone up during the recession, which is wonderful. CECP has developed and published metrics that companies use to measure their contributions and results compared to others in their industry. This encourages companies to do more and CECP is beginning to get out the story that companies are doing more than they have gotten credit for.•