Progress at Seaport Entertainment (SEG)
Important changes are already happening
Make sure you read the Special Report and podcast transcript for more background.
One of the main reasons I started writing publicly about investments is because it typically leads to valuable conversations with industry experts and investors. This article brings you some of the insights from discussions I’ve had since the Special Report on Seaport Entertainment was published, and lays out:
Updates I’m making to the original analysis
Where I think investor ‘consensus’ is and catalysts to change that
Developments at the company
Overall, I think Seaport is making many of the changes laid out in the Special Report. This fairly rapid progress has gone largely unnoticed by investors and should become clearer over the course of 2025.
As a reminder, Seaport was spun out from Howards Hughes and owns properties in New York and Las Vegas. The most important properties are in Lower Manhattan and are:
250 Water St: Land approved for a 27-story building that could be sold soon
Pier 17: Concert venue, office space being converted to entertainment, restaurants
The Tin Building: A heavily loss-making food hall
250 Water St
I’ve spoken with several developers since the Special Report, and the punchline is I remain confident 250 Water St can be sold for ~$160mm sometime this year. The $160mm figure is actually slightly lower than estimated in the report, but I would not read too much into that given how sensitive the value is to several inputs.
The updated table above tries to back out what a developer could pay for the land and still make a 25% margin, which is the industry standard.
The logic is as follows: If the completed building at 250 Water St is worth $885mm and construction costs are $547mm, a developer could pay $161mm for the land and still make a $177mm profit, or a 25% margin on their total cost before financing and levered returns.