WASHINGTON, July 5 (RIA Novosti) – A group of Russian and Ukrainian investors are backing a $2.25 billion dollar bid on New York’s iconic Empire State Building, The New York Observer reported.
The investors, who remain anonymous, have teamed with Reuven Kahane, a California-based entrepreneur who introduced the American-style bagel to Jerusalem with “Bonkers Bagels” in the 1990s. ”Before we brought them over, all they had here were rolls with holes,” he told The New York Times in 1997.
Kahane, who also has holdings in Californian real estate, told the Observer that the offer came about as a result of relationships he had developed through charity work with wealthy and politically “like-minded” Russian and Ukrainian Jews.
“The value is in the branding of the Empire State Building,” the Observer reported Kahane as saying. ”They want to build mini-Empire State Buildings all over Europe.”
