An investment firm run by a former REIT chief executive has built a 5.8 percent position in Empire State Realty Trust, the owner of the Empire State Building, and told the company’s board it wants a review of strategy that could take in some or all of its assets.
Erez Asset Management LLC and its founder, Bruce Schanzer, disclosed the stake in a Schedule 13D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 5, reporting beneficial ownership of 10,000,000 shares of Class A common stock. The event that triggered the filing occurred Oct. 1. A related entity, Erez REIT Opportunities LP, holds 7,500,000 of those shares, or 4.4 percent. The percentages are measured against 172,165,643 shares outstanding as of Aug. 4, 2026.
The firm paid approximately $43 million, including commissions, using working capital of the Erez funds, according to the filing. Erez lists a business address at 270 North Ave., Suite 404, in New Rochelle, N.Y.
Why the form matters
The choice of form is the signal. A Schedule 13G is the short filing a passive holder uses after crossing 5 percent of a company’s stock. A Schedule 13D is the long one, required when the holder intends to influence control or strategy, and it obliges the investor to spell out what it wants.
Erez says it believes the company’s securities are undervalued. Under Item 4, the required “purpose of transaction” disclosure, the firm says it has already communicated with management and the board about capital allocation, operations and strategy, including a potential strategic review of some or all of the company’s assets. It intends to keep pressing on governance, board composition, capital structure, dividend and buyback policy, and executive compensation. The filing says the investors may buy or sell shares or hedge their exposure depending on market conditions, and that beyond what is described they have no present plan of the kind the form’s checklist covers β a takeover bid, a merger, a delisting.
What Erez is buying into
Empire State Realty Trust is a concentrated bet on Manhattan. As of June 30 its office portfolio comprised nine properties, including one long-term ground leasehold interest, all in Manhattan, with roughly 7.5 million rentable square feet of office space, 0.8 million square feet of retail and 743 residential units, all in New York City, according to the company’s quarterly report. The Empire State Building, with its observation deck, is the flagship.
That deck is where the trouble has been. Observatory revenue fell to $24.2 million in the second quarter from $33.9 million a year earlier, and to $42.7 million from $57.1 million for the first six months. The company recorded a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $166.1 million for the three and six months ended June 30 tied to the Observatory reporting unit, and disclosed that $61.4 million of Observatory goodwill “remains at risk of future impairment.”
The write-down flipped the bottom line. Total revenues for the quarter were $196.9 million, up from $191.3 million a year earlier, but the company posted a net loss of $39.6 million against net income of $11.4 million in the 2025 quarter. The loss attributable to common stockholders was $25.8 million, against income of $6.5 million.
The office side has not been the problem. Manhattan leasing has been strong through 2026, with landlords including SL Green filling 245 Park Avenue and investors paying up for trophy product, as in the $6.2 billion joint venture at 350 Park Avenue. The gap between a recovering office market and a company whose shares Erez considers undervalued is the opening an activist looks for; the filing itself does not make that argument, and the connection is ours to draw, not the firm’s.
Who is pressing
Schanzer formed Erez in August 2022 as a fund manager focused on small-market-cap REITs, where he is chairman and chief investment officer. Before that he was president, chief executive and a director of Cedar Realty Trust from June 2011 to August 2022. He was a managing director in Goldman Sachs’ real estate investment banking group, a vice president at Merrill Lynch before that, and a real estate attorney in New York before Wall Street. He has served on NAREIT’s board of governors.
He has taken this route before. In November 2024, Franklin Street Properties announced a cooperation agreement with Erez and Converium Capital, under which Schanzer joined the board effective Nov. 27, 2024 and was appointed to the audit committee, and the two shareholders agreed to vote for the board’s nominees at the 2025 annual meeting.
A 13D commits the investor to amend the filing promptly if its plans change materially, so the next disclosure β a letter, a nomination, a settlement β will arrive through the same channel.
