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By: Serach Nissim
Fin-tech firm Payoneer is moving to L&L Holding Company’s landmarked “wedding cake” office building at 195 Broadway.
As reported by the NY Post, Payoneer is expanding from the 23,000 square feet it currently leases at 150 W. 30th St. and moving into a 42,000 square feet space at 195 Broadway. The asking rent was said to be $57 per square foot for the office building located between Fulton Street and Church Street, near the World Trade Center. The move is one of the year’s largest relocations for the FiDi area, amid a continued slump for commercial real estate, per the Post.
The 29-story building, which boasts 1.1 million square-feet of space, is now 86 percent leased. Also dubbed the Telephone Building, Telegraph Building, or Western Union Building, commissioned after AT&T’s 1909 acquisition of Western Union and opened as one of the early skyscrapers in 1916, it was the sight of the first transcontinental telephone call. Designed by William W. Bosworth, with impressive Greek influenced columns made of marble, and layers of gray granite, it had been purchased in 2005 by David W. Levinson’s and Robert T. Lapidus’ firm, L & L Holding.
The building underwent a renovation in 2016. L&L now manages the property for institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan. The building had been sold in 2019 by a group led by JP Morgan Asset Management to two Korean organizations for $500 million, while the ground story lease was sold separately to Safehold Inc. for $275 million. Other prominent tenants at the famed office building include Gucci, Omnicom, HarperCollins, Getty Images, Thomas Reuters, and restaurant Nobu. The building, which is considered an architectural treasure, features an elegant double-height lobby and 30 elevators.
Payoneer CEO John Caplan said, “Relocating our headquarters to the Financial District and creating a new space for employees fosters collaboration for the benefit of our customers.” He said the neighborhood “reflects the innovative, resilient and inclusive culture of Payoneer.” Payoneer was represented in the deal by Savills North America’s Jeffrey Peck, Daniel Horowitz, Jacob Stern and Roi Shleifer. L&L was repped in-house by leasing director James Marcellino.
Payoneer is a financial services company that provides online money transfers and digital payment services. The company, established in 2005, is led by its founder, Yuval Tal, an Israeli entrepreneur and engineer. The company went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 2021. The company boasted $5.08 billion in total assets as of 2021, and some $473 million in revenue in 2021.
The company is a shining example of New York’s growing Fin tech industry, which includes digital wealth, crypto, lending, and B2B Fintech, among others. New York has solidified its stance as a core global fintech hub, and is now the fastest-growing market for fintech investment in the United States, with a rapidly growing ecosystem of startups, capital, talent, educational resources and Fintech accelerators. It’s also a great place for startups in the general tech sector with ample opportunities to secure venture capital investments. In 2021, about 643 first-time founders for tech sector startups in New York City were able to raise a total of $3.3 billion, per data by Pitchbook.
The number jumped significantly, since 2018 through 2020, when there was an annual average of 431 first-time founders who raised funds for New York startups, per the data. As previously reported by Crain’s, NY’s tech sector is topped only by the West Coast’s Bay Area.
