BUSINESS BRIEF

Class-action sought for suit against skyscraper

12/27/2013

NEW YORK — Thousands of stakeholders in the Empire State Building lost more than $400 million in potential profits when the managing owners rebuffed potential buyers so they could sell public shares in the iconic skyscraper, a new lawsuit says.

By spurning all-cash offers for the tower and instead packaging it with lesser-known office properties into a publicly traded stock, father-and-son real estate magnates Peter and Anthony Malkin put their interests ahead of those of the building’s longtime investors, lawyer John Rizio-Hamilton said Thursday. He represents one of those investors, who filed the suit Tuesday seeking class-action status on behalf of roughly 3,000 people who hold Empire State Building shares sold privately in 1961.

The Malkins’ Empire State Realty Trust said the claims were “wholly without merit.”