A rich Salt Lake City businessman is said to be in escrow to buy the former Newport Beach headquarters of failed savings and loan operator Downey Financial Corp.
Commercial real estate sources point to Khosrow Semnani, a Utah resident who made his fortune in the environmental and waste disposal business, as heading up the winning bid for the Bayview Corporate Center office buildings.
The bid is believed to be close to $50 million, according to brokers not directly involved in the deal.
If correct, that’s about a 15% discount from the office’s most recent asking price of $59 million,and more than 50% below what the building was being marketed for less than a year ago.
The buildings are being sold by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which seized Downey’s assets in late 2008 after the thrift operator failed amid bad loans.
Semnani has some Southern California real estate ties. He’s said to be affiliated with LAT Investment Corp., a Los Angeles-based commercial real estate business.
LAT Investment appears to own at least one Southern California office, near Los Angeles International Airport on Century Boulevard. The company is not known to own any Orange County buildings.
Semnani is better known as the founder of Salt Lake City-based Envirocare, a toxic and nuclear waste disposal company he sold in 2004 for an undisclosed price. Envirocare now is part of EnergySolutions Inc., the largest nuclear waste company in the U.S.
Iran-born Semnani is reported to be one of the wealthiest non-Mormons living in Utah.
For more on this story, see the Sept. 28 edition of the Business Journal.
