Investors acquire loan on Charles Wang's LI Marriott, seek to resolve foreclosure proceedings

An investor group is acquiring the $103.5 million loan owed by Charles Wang's Long Island Marriott Hotel and Conference Center and is in talks to resolve foreclosure proceedings, a lawyer for the group said.

The 618-room Marriott in Uniondale, Long Island's largest hotel, has missed payments on the loan. An investor group registered in Rockland County, called IX LIM Owner LP, is in the final steps of acquiring the loan, said the group's lawyer, Abraham Krieger of Garden City. IX LIM Owner is paying $61.6 million to buy the loan, Krieger said.

Wang is a co-founder of CA Technologies and majority owner of the New York Islanders hockey team. This month Wang sold a minority stake in the Islanders to Jon Ledecky, former Washington Capitals co-owner, and London-based investor Scott Malkin. The stake will convert to majority ownership in two years, pending NHL Board of Governors approval. Newsday reported in 2009 that Wang was losing $20 million a year on the Islanders. The team will move next year from Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Lenders first filed for foreclosure on the Long Island Marriott in July 2013, after several months of missed payments.

In March, New York State Supreme Court Justice Roy S. Mahon denied an attempt by lenders to speed up the foreclosure process.

In an April 22 motion, lenders asked Mahon to reconsider his decision.

"I don't think the motion has any merit," said attorney John McEntee of Uniondale, who is representing the hotel and Wang.

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Mahon heard oral arguments for the motion on Aug. 12.

Krieger said that "the parties are in negotiations," and that "it's probably going to be resolved by the parties. I'm not going to say definitively, as it's formally still before the court."

Wang purchased the hotel in 2005 to bolster his Lighthouse Project to revitalize the Nassau Coliseum, a plan that never came to fruition.

When the loan was taken out in 2007, Swiss global financial services company UBS AG was the originator and Wells Fargo Bank was in charge of servicing the loan, according to Bloomberg data.

In January 2013, Fitch Ratings reported that the loan was turned over to Texas-based C-III Asset Management, a company that services debt on distressed properties, because of "imminent default."

The group that is now acquiring the loan formed in Delaware on April 22 and then registered to do business in New York on April 29, according to Delaware and New York State records.

The hotel was valued at $63.4 million in an April 2013 appraisal, according to Bloomberg data. In 2010 it had been valued at $152 million.