Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather has withdrawn his massive $175M fraud lawsuit against fmr. main man Jona Rechnitz, business partner Ayal Frist and attorney Alexander Seligson, per new court filings. The action was discontinued "without prejudice," which means Mayweather can return to the legal ring to duke it out w/ Rechnitz et al. at a later date. Josh Gotlib’s Black Spruce, meanwhile, wants out of the fight: On Sept. 8, it asked a Manhattan judge to let it park the distributions for Mayweather's holdco Vada with the court, citing Mayweather's suit. Frist, his LLC Frist Apex and Rechnitz fired back with a counterclaim demanding a full accounting, alleging Black Spruce kept paying out the 80/20 split (80% Floyd, 20% Frist Apex) for months after Mayweather sued. On Sept. 4, per their filing, Gotlib wrote of Floyd's cut: "It's just sitting. Not mine to do anything with."

On October 14, we're doing our first webinar: Bravo Capital’s Aaron Krawitz and Matthew Fisher walk through why HUD belongs in every multifamily market-rate financing conversation. They’re going to get granular and take you through real deals, so come with questions. Register now.

This week on the pod, we take stock of the tale of Lurin Capital, a multifamily syndicator now in the FBI's crosshairs. Jon Venetos was cut from very different cloth than the rest of the Sunbelt Dreamers, and his fall is arguably even more cinematic. Next, it's a classic Manhattan tale of capstack sniping: With 245 Park prepping a $2B refi, we look back at SL Green's tranche warfare with HNA at the skyscraper. Plus, our Punch List rundown of the newsiest CRE happenings: Benefit Street’s leadership shakeup, 485x's perverse incentives, Pontegadea's latest acquisition, Jeff Greene-Fort Partners, CBRE-Tenet.

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A capstack tipster passed along this unusual sources and uses statement from 261 Madison Ave, where CRE scion Alex Sapir 🎛 is looking for a 🍕 of jr. mezz for an office-resi conversion play. You’ll notice that the sponsor equity for Phase I is blank

JPM & Mack Real Estate did a $326M refi for both 261 and Sapir’s neighboring 260 Madison in ‘22. But w/ the latter tower struggling, Sapir sold it to Jonathan Bennett’s AmTrustRE for just $211M ($370/ 🦶) late last year. That move was part of a broader selloff driven by pressure across much of the Sapir portfolio. Meanwhile, Sapir is teaming up w/ Eric Trump on a Trump Tower project in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Marty 🍔 has made his first big acquisition in his new JV w/ L&L principal David Levinson, and it’s a cozy one: The JV, L&L Infinite, paid $245M ($425/ 🦶) for 600 Third, a Manhattan office tower that’s 92% leased, per Bloomberg. L&L Infinite bought the joint from L&L Holding (which is Levinson and Rob Lapidus) & BlackRock (the press reports of the sale keep describing it as an “unidentified institutional investor,” though it’s clearly BlackRock from previous reports.) On the acquisition, which was financed via a $215M loan from Bain Capital and brokered by Newmark, Burger & Levinson were joined by Mack Real Estate, Lloyd Goldman’s BLDG and hotelier Richard Born’s BD Blakely. Not sure if this is just us, but feels like there is a flurry of these kind of transactions in the office market, where one of the principals stays in the mix w/ a whole new set of partners and a fresh capstack. The one that’s top of mind is RXR’s Gemini Office Ventures (we’ve gone deep on the vehicle here and on the pod), but seen plenty of others as well. We’ll do a full tally soon.

Interesting development in the sub-rehab battle that has been top of mind for New York multifamily players this year: New York AG Tish James is trying to gag a whistleblower whose testimony the developer at the center of the crusade sees as a key vindication: Fmr. state housing official Woody Pascal, per TRD, detailed how his fmr. agency’s moves to curb sub-rehabs were driven by political pressure from the pro-tenant camp, and went against a long-established policy framework that Peak Capital Advisors (Alex Rabin, David Gomez) were operating under. REBNY has been looking to support Peak’s case, and James’ attempts to stop the powerful trade group’s intervention were unsuccessful.

“This case presents a question of significant, industry-wide consequence: whether the state may apply a novel interpretation of the substantial rehabilitation exemption … to transactions completed years before that interpretation existed,” Belkin Burden lawyers Kara Schechter Rakowski and Anthony Morreale wrote on behalf of REBNY, per TRD.

While Peak fights on here, the firm is essentially a shell for now, with Rabin (Astor & Rowe) and Gomez (Aksel America) launching new ventures.