VORNADO POSTS LOSS
Vornado Realty Trust, the third biggest US real estate investment trust, reported a fourth-quarter loss as office tenants cut jobs and the company wrote down assets.
The net loss was $202.5 million, or $1.40 a share, compared with net income of $105.2 million, or 57 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based company said.
Office building owners are reducing dividends and losing sales as tenants vacate space in the recession.
Manhattan office rents fell 4.8 percent to $69.44 a square foot in the fourth quarter, according to broker Cushman & Wakefield, the largest quarterly decline in at least two decades as space for sublet flooded the market.
Vornado took a $135.3 million non-cash writedown on the value of real estate development projects and another $100.7 million to write-off the value of an investment in Lexington Realty Trust.
Revenue rose 6 percent to $696.3 million.