Business: High Interest

But the W. T. C. 's not for sale

To would-be climbers, tightrope walkers, King Kong and New York tourists, it is the World Trade Center, at 1,350 ft. the second tallest building in the world, behind only Chicago's Sears Tower (1,454 ft.). To Germans, the 110-story double monolith looming over Lower Manhattan is a tongue twister: Das Welthandelzen-trum. The translation is of more than casual interest to the Deutsche Bank of Frankfurt, which in terms of assets (about $50 billion) ranks fourth in the world, after San Francisco's Bank of America, New York's Citibank and France's Caisse Nationale de Crēdit Agricole. The bank has approached the W.T.C.'s owner, the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, about buying the colossus for resale to as yet unspecified German clients. The W.T.C. cost $1 billion by the time it was completed in 1972, and probably would sell for about that much. Though rentals came slowly at first because of an oversupply of office space in the city, they picked up with the recovery following the 1973-75 recession, and the building is now 90% occupied. The Trade Center still remains a drain on the Port Authority, since much of its space was rented at bargain rates and as a result the W.T.C.'s income will not cover its costs for some time. Yet a sale now is unlikely, if only because the Port Authority years ago forcefully proclaimed its need to build—and operate —the W.T.C.

Whatever happens to it, the Germans' approach is another evidence of the craving of foreign capital for a haven in the safe, solid U.S. Deutsche Bank viewed the W.T.C. as a sound investment in prime U.S. urban real estate, a market in which it already has some experience. During the past two years, with other German banks, Deutsche Bank has bought Pennzoil Place and Shell Oil Tower in Houston.