CRANBERRY TWP — The new owner of Westinghouse Corp.'s Cranberry Woods campus appears to be a New York private equity group.

Documents filed Friday in the Butler County Recorder of Deeds Office indicate that Fortress Investment Group, a New York company managing $41.5 billion in assets, is responsible for CF Cranberry LLC, the mysterious holding company created days before the announcement of the $180 million sale.

A mortgage document identifies the LLC's principal place of business to be Fortress Credit Advisors, which the SEC identifies as a subsidiary of the larger Fortress Investment Group. The mortgage was signed by Jason Meyer as an authorized signatory on behalf of the LLC. Meyer is the deputy chief operating officer for Fortress.

According to the investment firm's website, its credit division has a real estate opportunity fund, focusing on “commercial real estate and real estate-related assets.”

Since the $180 million sale was announced Jan. 17, there had been no indications as to who now owns the property. The previous owner, Columbia Property Trust, did not announce the purchaser in its Jan. 17 news release. Nor did JLL, a firm representing Columbia that recruited the purchaser.

The identity of CF Cranberry LLC was somewhat of a mystery in the week following the sale's announcement.

It was revealed Wednesday and Thursday that Columbia transferred ownership of the campus to CF Cranberry LLC, a company created in Delaware on Jan. 13 specifically for the sale of the property.

Sale structure

Because the sale occurred through the holding company, rather than a direct sale of the site, a deed transfer tax occurred on about $145 million, the fair market value of the property, and not its $180 million announced sale price.

Fortress may have also avoided some tax on the $35 million difference by setting up a string of companies involved in the ownership of the property. At least three additional companies claim a portion of ownership in the LLC that owns the campus.

Because of that structure, two taxes were paid: CF Cranberry Holdings II paid the deed transfer tax on about 1.2 percent of the site's fair market value, and Columbia paid the tax on the fair market value.

Combined, the sale added about $727,000 each to the coffers of Cranberry Township and Seneca Valley School District. A tax on the full value of the sale would have resulted in $900,000 going to each entity.

Jerry Andree, Cranberry township manager, said he would like the state Department of Revenue to examine the transaction to ensure it complies with the state tax code.

“Not that we want to accuse anybody of any impropriety. We just want to be sure,” Andree said.

Gordon Runté, managing director of Fortress' media department, did not immediately respond to a phone call Friday seeking comment.

Fortress Investment

Since its 2017 purchase by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group, Fortress has made more forays into commercial real estate. In 2018, it bought a building in Palm Beach, Fla., that houses Tiffany & Co. and, last year, it bought a 709,000-square-foot industrial distribution warehouse in Nashville, Tenn. The purchase of the Westinghouse campus is its first major real estate acquisition in 2020.

JLL described the buyer as an “institutional investor” in a Jan. 17 news release. Fortress owns assets such as Gannet Co., which owns USA TODAY, and Virgin Trains USA, the only privately owned inter-city rail system in the country.

The buyer borrowed $135 million to complete the transaction, which had an announced sale price of $180 million. With the facility sprawling over nearly 824,000 square feet, Fortress paid more than $218 per square foot, if the announced price is accurate.

The mortgage document indicates the sale was finalized Jan. 16, just more than one month from when Columbia announced the property was under contract to be sold.