Forbes: He who must not be named receives $125 million annual salary for owning 30% of two office towers, one in New York City and one in San Francisco

According to an article in this month’s Forbes magazine, He to whom all money flows has a 30% (minority) ownership interest in two commercial properties, 2.1 million square feet of office space, part in San Francisco and part in central New York, 1290 Avenue of the Americas.  He is quoted in the article as saying he received a check for $125 million for his ownership interest (possibly in 2015).  He has no control over the buildings, and they have undergone extensive renovation in recent years in successful effort to get higher-paying tenants.  However, buildings with the actual name of he who must not be named on them have done considerably less well, and have declined in value the last two years.

The nature of these treasure-stores of rent is that he need not do anything at all to receive the money annually, just sign the deposit slips at his bank.  In fact, these properties are most of his wealth, being overwhelmingly larger than his golf courses or other brands.  Apparently he was forced by poor business decisions to give up majority control over real estate, meaning he would get a big check but have no control over the property.

A number of large developments with the family name of he who must not be named have successfully gone to court in the last two years to have the name removed from their facades– partly due to poor publicity, and partly due to poor behavior.

It is likely that, in order to gain control over him, the Russians would have needed to shift hundreds of millions of dollars his way.  One way of doing this, apparently, was to purchase apartments in his developments for inflated prices, say $5 million for a single apartment.  On the other hand, large real estate assets, like a 50 acre country estate, could go for nearer a hundred million dollars– and the price could be easily inflated to two hundred million without raising suspicion.