Job Security After Sale Uncertain

Despite assurances by Martin V. “Bud” Smith that all his employees can keep their jobs, buyers of the bulk of the Oxnard developer’s $150-million real estate empire say they do not know how many of Smith’s nearly 1,000 workers will be rehired once the deal closes in late February.

“It’s premature to say whether all of them or a portion of them will be [rehired]” said Scott Nesbit, an executive for Tiger Real Estate Partners, a New York fund that invests money worldwide for 28 public and private pension funds and foundations.

“We’re going to be retaining as many of them as possible, and as makes sense. Other than that I cannot comment. It’s premature,” said Nesbit, who helped negotiate the purchase of about 60 of Smith’s properties over the past three months.

But Nesbit emphasized that the Tiger group’s managers and employees will be local.

“We will form our own organization,” he said. “We will look at the existing Smith employees initially to try to staff from that organization. We are not going to try to manage this from New York or Los Angeles.”

Nesbit would not comment on past purchases by the 20-month-old investment fund, or on how many employees of other sellers have been kept on the payroll.

Based in New York City, with a western office in Los Angeles, the Tiger Real Estate fund has used part of its $785-million investment pool to buy a variety of properties in Washington, Oregon, Arizona and California, Nesbit said. The fund is making other purchases nationally and internationally, he added.

The investment group is partly owned by Julian Robertson, one of Wall Street’s most successful investors. Robertson’s parent Tiger Management Corp., which manages investments of about $7 billion, helped form the real estate group in April 1994, Nesbit said.

Although his representatives had been careful to make no promises, Smith said in an interview Saturday that all 975 of his workers can keep their jobs if they want them once the sale is complete. “If they want to work, they’ve got a job right where they are,” he said.

Smith, 79, who has built Ventura County’s largest real estate empire over the past 50 years, could not be reached Tuesday. Spokesman Richard D. Spencer confirmed the sales contract with Tiger includes no job assurances, but referred other questions on employment to Tiger officials.

In the first interview by a representative of the Tiger investment group, Nesbit said his company had agreed not to reveal the purchase price of Smith’s properties. But real estate sources said it is more than $100 million.

Nesbit also said:

* The new owners are interested in possibly helping build an aquarium at Channel Islands Harbor and will help complete a study of the project that Smith has supported.

* The Oxnard City Council’s approval of a third office tower at Smith’s landmark Financial Plaza--where the county’s two tallest buildings already are situated--was a significant consideration in the deal. But no timeline for construction has been considered.

* Most of the five dozen properties in the deal will be held as long-term investments and not sold off piecemeal.

“We believe in California, and in Southern California and certainly we believe in Ventura County,” Nesbit said. “We’re very optimistic about the growth in Ventura County going forward, and believe in the long-term value of this portfolio.”

The agreement announced Friday will transfer most of Smith’s holdings--which stretch from Calabasas to Santa Maria and were valued at $150 million last year--to an unnamed affiliate of Tiger Real Estate Partners and Tiger Real Estate Fund.

Those holdings include the Financial Plaza, Oxnard’s Fisherman’s Wharf, nine hotels with about 1,200 rooms and more than 1,000 apartments, most near Channel Islands Harbor. About 2 million square feet of space in office, commercial and industrial buildings is included in the transaction. Nesbit said the Financial Plaza’s two office towers are probably the most valuable elements in the package.

“The Financial Plaza is a high quality office environment” with an occupancy rate of about 85%--close to the market average, he said. And the potential to expand with the already approved third tower was “one of many factors” in deciding to buy the package, he said.