gretavo's picture

Just how good was 9/11 for Larry Silverstein?

Before 9/11, Silverstein owned WTC7, worth $861 million (what the insurance paid out on it) on which he owed a regular $400 million mortgage. In addition, 6 weeks before 9/11 he leased the other 6 buildings including the twin towers, for $3.2 billion over 99 years. After 9/11, he ended up with buildings worth $6.2 billion (new WTCs 7, 2, and 3) financed in part by $3.1 billion in low interest tax exempt liberty bonds and $5.3 billion in insurance payments. He may have had to give around $1 billion of the insurance to the Port Authority towards building WTC 1 (based on vague references to the original estimated cost of WTC 1 being "partially funded" by insurance payouts) and still has to pay rent to them to have his new buildings on their land, but this is maximum $50 million a year, probably less, based on the PA budget shoeing a total annual revenue of $50 million for rents and leases. I'd say he made a killing--figuratively and probably literally.

This wasn't too easy to piece together, and represents my best effort at figuring out the tangle of deals between Silverstein and the PA that no one seems to have summarized clearly anywhere... If anyone has corrections or clarifications to offer, I'm all ears at rt ATTA wtcdemolition DAUGHTER COMRADE.

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