Crains New York - March 11, 2013 - (Page 1)

CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS VOL. XXIX, NO. 10 GREG DAVID REGRETS PAGE 9 ® Rudy, early 2001 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM MARCH 11-17, 2013 PRICE: $3.00 Cuomo’s subsidy grab irks city Governor would end mayor’s power to award state sales-tax breaks to lure biz A measure tucked into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2013 budget would limit the ability of local governments to grant sales-tax breaks, a change that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and some business leaders say would hurt economic development in New York City. The measure would curtail the ability of the city’s Industrial Development Agency, a nonprofit run by the Economic DevelYEARLY SAVINGS opment Corp., to under state grant incentives to proposal shifting projects such as subsidy authority business relocations from localities to regional councils or new developments. Under Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, the New York City IDA could continue to unilaterally exempt businesses from the city’s 4.5% sales tax, but no longer from the state’s 4.4% portion. Instead, that authority would go to a Cuomo-appointed economic-development panel. Some industries would become ineligible for sales-tax deals. After an outcry about the proposal from some IDAs around the state, Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy said last month that the Cuomo administration was open to a modification. But in the governor’s recently released 30-day budget amendments, the proposal was unchanged. Legislative leaders in Albany have been largely mum on the matter and are striving to pass the budget early,even a week or more before the April 1 deadline, leaving the city perhaps only a few days to get the IDA provision removed. In his testimony on the budget in Albany, Mayor Michael Bloomberg $14M NEWSPAPER See CUOMO’S SUBSIDY on Page 18 5 years after Bear Stearns’ bust Ⅲ WALL STREET Ⅲ REAL ESTATE Unbowed, undefeated and still the world’s financial champ gettyimages BY CHRIS BRAGG A rising wave of sliced, diced and securitized mortgages is again helping fuel the market BY AARON ELSTEIN Five years ago this week, Bear Stearns abruptly collapsed, THEN VS. a failure that marked the beginning of 2008’s apocalyptic NOW: IT’S financial crisis. Less well known is this curious fact: The DIFFERENT ordeal reinforced New York’s status as the world’s capital THIS TIME, ISN’T IT? of capitalism. Thanks to the federal government’s bailout of the SEE P. 20 banking system and the gradual recovery of the U.S.economy, New York weathered the crisis far more successfully than London, its chief rival for king of the financial hill. See WALL STREET on Page 20 BY DANIEL GEIGER Last year, when the owners of Worldwide Plaza, the 59-story office tower that takes up an entire block-front on the western edge of midtown, put the property on the market, bidders were unable to meet the $1 billion-plus asking price. Fast-forward to last month, and those owners, a group that includes George Comfort & Sons and RCG Longview, raked in their cash another way. They took out an $875 million loan against the property. See REAL ESTATE on Page 20 REPORT SMALL BUSINESS NEW LIST: Our guide to the city’s 90+ business incubators, accelerators and other startup hatcheries P. 11 http://WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - March 11, 2013

IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
CORPORATE LADDER
OPINION
GREG DAVID
REAL ESTATE DEALS
REPORT: SMALL BUSINESS
STARTUP GUIDE
CLASSIFIEDS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - March 11, 2013