Lenders move on Hackman's Television City over $357M debt
The owner of the storied Fairfax studio lot faces a forced sale as its $357M debt sours alongside other Hackman studio bets.
Lenders are moving to force a sale of Television City, the storied Los Angeles studio complex, after filing a notice of default and election to sell against owner Hackman Capital Partners over $357 million in debt.
A Deutsche Bank-led syndicate filed the notice in late June, and CBRE has been tapped to market the loan on the 25-acre Fairfax-district lot at 7800 Beverly Boulevard. Hackman paid $750 million for the property in 2019, buying it from CBS, and planned a roughly $1 billion redevelopment that would have added nearly 1 million square feet of offices, soundstages and retail. That business plan is now on hold.
Why it matters
The action is one of the most visible signs of distress rippling through the Los Angeles studio market, where content-production pullbacks and higher rates have collided with aggressive 2019–2021 acquisition prices. It also caps a rough stretch for a firm that assembled a marquee soundstage portfolio at the market’s peak, the kind of repricing that resets values for an entire asset class.
The numbers
Beyond Television City’s $357 million, Hackman owes $258 million on Manhattan Beach Studios, where a $240 million loan is being marketed, and defaulted on a $100 million loan tied to a former Sony campus in Culver City. The firm’s $2 billion purchase of Radford Studio Center in 2021 has also unwound, with Goldman Sachs taking control and Netflix reportedly closing in on a roughly $400 million deal.
What’s next
The loan sale puts Television City’s ownership in play and could hand control to a new lender or buyer. Rick Caruso and the Gilmore family have been cited as possible bidders, and Hackman remains in discussions with its lenders over alternatives. Hackman has been candid about the losses: “we’re going to lose a lot of money on those properties, but that happens,” Michael Hackman said at a June conference. How the distressed studio assets clear will shape pricing across LA’s production real estate.