NEW YORK -- Rockefeller Center Properties, the public company that holds the $1.3 billion mortgage on Rockefeller Center, said yesterday that it had arranged to sell $225 million in long-term debt, averting what had been a looming financial crisis.
The deal does not affect the company's more fundamental problem: that Rockefeller Center's owner, the Rockefeller Group, which is controlled by Mitsubishi Estate Co. of Japan, does not have enough money to make the payments on the mortgage and may default on the loan.
Rockefeller Center Properties is a real estate investment trust whose only business is to hold the mortgage on Rockefeller Center.
In 1985 Rockefeller Group, then owned entirely by the Rockefeller family, took a $1.3 billion mortgage on the property, which is bordered by Fifth Avenue, Avenue of the Americas, 48th and 51st streets. The money was lent by Rockefeller Center Properties, which raised $750 million selling stock and $550 million selling bonds.