By the way, OilJunkies, we lost another piece of America today.....Abu Dhabi buys Chrysler tower for $800m -http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jul/10/sovereignwealthfunds.usa
"New York's Chrysler building. Photograph: Peter Foley/Getty (top)
One of the best-loved buildings on the New York skyline has been sold to the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government for an estimated $800m (£400m).
New Jersey-based Prudential insurance company yesterday confirmed it had sold its 75% stake in the art deco Chrysler building to the Abu Dhabi investment council. Abu Dhabi is the biggest and richest member of the United Arab Emirates.
Like other Middle East groups, it has been able to take advantage of collapsing property prices and soaring oil revenues.
The 77-storey building was completed in 1930 and was briefly the tallest in the world. But it lost that status in 1931 when the Empire State building opened.
The way its silver-coloured top reflects the sun from dawn to dusk has made it a much-loved symbol of the Big Apple.
While the Empire State has had many film moments, of which King Kong is the best known, so too has the Chrysler, most recently featuring in Spider-Man.
It is not the first New York landmark to be taken over by foreign investors. Japanese financiers bought the Rockefeller Centre during a collapse in property prices in 1989, and last May a consortium of businesses from the US, Kuwait and Qatar bought the General Motors building on Fifth Avenue.
With the US an advocate of free trade, there were few protests yesterday, in contrast with a row two years ago when a company from Dubai, another of the emirates, sought to buy control of six US ports. National security was cited as the reason for blocking the sale.
Real Capital Analytics, a New York research firm, estimated that Middle East investors had spent $1.8bn on commercial property in the US this year."
I have to scale back on my rants, Hillary and the cowardly thugs who run China will find me.
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