New York real estate empire, “actual'' “successor'' dispute: lawsuit

Metro

by Catian Boniello

The real-life “Succession” drama pits two sisters against each other over a $2 billion family real estate empire that once included the Chrysler Building and the Stanhope Hotel. and 13 million square feet of Big Apple real estate.

The fortune was amassed by Sol Goldman, a father of four who owned the city's largest private real estate portfolio when he died in 1987 at age 70.

Mr. Goldman's daughter, Amy, a major Democratic donor who once hosted a $50,000-a-person reception for President Biden, is running the family company “with death in mind.” He claimed that he had been unfairly excluded from the business by his younger sister Jane.

Amy, 70, weighed in on the controversy by arguing in a Manhattan Supreme Court filing with her nephew Stephen Gurney Goldman that “Jane's deep-seated sense of entitlement is matched only by her paranoia.” He called it “similarities between the TV show 'Succession' and real life.”

Jane, 68, said she had run the company for 35 years and accused Amy of being an absentee manager who wanted to spend her days gardening and growing heirloom champion tomatoes.

“Comparison” [to “Succession”] We agree on one point. They’re both fiction,” Jane said of Amy’s lawsuit.

Jane's sister and nephew are seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, claiming in their own court papers filed this week that the Goldmans are “simply seeking to extract an unfair advantage from the Goldman family's estate for themselves.”

Amy and Jane's only brother, Alan, died in 2022, and Stephen Gurney Goldman, 31, the son of a poker player and Settlers of Catan ranking participant, began making “exorbitant demands.” The sibling rivalry began, Jane said in legal documents.

“When Jane did not agree, he hired Amy to file a series of lawsuits to try to force the outcome he wanted,” Jane charged.

In 2022, Amy and Stephen both began the process of liquidating their interests in SGI (Sol Goldman Investments). Sol Goldman Investments, a branch of a large family that owns roughly 150 to 200 properties worth more than $2 billion, balked as outside firms assessed their value. They do business for less than they thought they were worth.

If the appraised value is lower, their initial payments would be $91 million each instead of the roughly $130 million they had sought.

Amy and Jane Goldman are each worth about $1 billion thanks to their father's inheritance. Each of Sol Goldman's children owns a 25% stake in SGI, but according to a protocol set out by Sol Goldman before his death, if they wish to cash out their shares, they will have to do so every few years. Only 5% could be exchanged.

Sol Goldman, the son of a Brooklyn grocer, began buying foreclosed properties in the 1950s, but lost ownership of the Chrysler Building in the 1970s after a decades-long real estate crash. I fell behind on my mortgage.

But the family still owns the land below the Olympic Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown, which extends below the Cartier mansion and also owns dozens of commercial and residential buildings.

Attorneys for Amy and Stephen declined to comment.

Their claims are “a worthless and brazen attempt to deny Sol Goldman's aspirations for the family business and to unfairly enrich his own pockets.” We look forward to testifying to Jane's long and loyal dedication to the business she has built,” Jane's attorney, Jason Cirilnik, said in a statement.

Additional reporting by Lois Weiss.