Viacom Explores the Sale of CBS Headquarters in New York

(Bloomberg) -- ViacomCBS Inc. hired CBRE Group Inc. to review its entire real estate portfolio, including a possible sale of the CBS skyscraper known as Black Rock in midtown Manhattan.

Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish announced the plan at the UBS Global telecom and media conference in New York Monday. He didn’t indicate an expected price for the Eero Saarinen-designed skyscraper, which opened in 1965 and is 38 stories tall.

Viacom and CBS, which just completed their merger this month, are looking to generate $500 million in cost savings. CBS had already sought to capitalize on its real estate holdings. Last year, it struck a deal to sell its Television City studio in Los Angeles for $750 million to Hackman Capital Partners in a leaseback arrangement.

CBS occupies about a third of the building at 51 West 52nd Street. The company also owns a broadcast center nearby and another studio, CBS Radford, in Los Angeles.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lucas Shaw in Los Angeles at lshaw31@bloomberg.net;Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net

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