Meta-linked trust snatches up Midtown penthouse in $50M deal

According to a deed that appeared in city records Monday, Wyoming-based limited liability company A7P  Trust purchased the 6,296-square-foot four-bedroom unit on the 23rd floor of the Aman New York condo for  $50.6 million.

Nearly everyone who purchases an apartment at the opulent building, located at 730 Fifth Ave., remains anonymous behind the screen of shell companies, and this one is no different, save for the trust’s long documented ties to Silicon Valley tech giant Meta.  

Those ties seem to converge on financial executive Tom van Loben Sels, who is both the director of A7P and a partner at Apercen Partners, a Palo Alto-based tax consulting firm that frequently handles real estate transactions on behalf of Facebook and Meta’s top brass, including Facebook founder and Meta chairman Mark  Zuckerberg.  

Indeed, Apercen was involved in the 2016 purchase of multiple townhouses on West 10th Street in Greenwich  Village that reportedly later became the home of Facebook's founding president, Sean Parker.

Other properties in van Loben Sels’ orbit include the penthouse at 152 Elizabeth St., which sold in 2018 for $30  million and was later transferred to A7P. Former Facebook Vice President Matt Cohler apparently lived there.  

Similarly, van Loben Sels signed the deed for 157 W. 12th St., a townhouse he acquired in 2015 for $22.3  million, according to the city register. After, it apparently became the home of Facebook co-founder Chris  Hughes, who sold the property at a $3 million loss, for $19.5 million, in 2020.  

A7P is also listed as an owner of 118 W. 12th St., a Greenwich Village townhouse that sold at the end of 2023  for $17.9 million, the register shows.

Van Loben Sels, who declined to comment, is also listed as the representative on tax documents for Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan’s nonprofit the Openness Foundation. Meta and Facebook also declined to comment.  

Whoever purchased the Aman condo, which features sweeping views of both the skyline and Central Park, and boasts a home theater, private elevator and three fireplaces, picked up the last remaining full-floor penthouse in the residential portion of a complex developed by Vlad Doronin, which also contains an 83-room hotel. The condo portion of the Billionaires Row residence, which is at the high-profile corner of West 57th Street, is now completely sold out, according to its representatives.  

The same reps declined to comment on the buyer’s identity but would say they are a “repeat” owner across the portfolio. 

“Our owners feel a deep connection to the Aman brand’s DNA while exhibiting a collector’s mindset, having acquired multiple Aman private residences across the globe,”

said Amie Buchanan, the global director of residential sales for Aman.

This article has been sourced from Carin's New York Business.