The Redcoats Are Leaving

Manhattan's William Zeckendorf, 57, buys properties the way other people buy record albums. The trouble is that Zeckendorf's base of operations, the New York realty firm of Webb & Knapp, Inc., has sometimes been barely a step ahead of its creditors. It seemed a healthy and restraining influence on Zeckendorf's unorthodox dealings when 13 months ago he took on as his partners the London real estate firm of Second Covent Garden Properties Co. Ltd.--in return for $43,750,000 in needed cash and loan guarantees that Second Covent pumped into Zeckendorf's $400 million empire. The new British partners shrewdly insisted on one condition: anything they did not like would not happen at Webb & Knapp.

Last week, conceding that his wheeling and dealing "might not be a proper Englishman's cup of tea," ebullient Bill Zeckendorf announced Evacuation Day for the hapless British. He acknowledged that his three British representatives, as well as three Americans whom the British had named to the board, had resigned as directors (though the British hold on to their 15% of Webb & Knapp stock). The British had found Zeckendorf impossible to harness or control. Barely controlling his own glee at having shucked off his British advisers, Zeckendorf piously admitted: "They thought that they could reform the old man, and I wish they had."

To rid Webb & Knapp of its bothersome short-term debts, the British had demanded that Zeckendorf sell some of Webb & Knapp's holdings. But Zeckendorf's idea of liquidation differed from his partners': though he sold some holdings, he kept right on buying others (among the purchases: $25 million for Manhattan's Savoy Hilton Hotel). Outraged, the British sent to New York a relay of executives, who camped out in Zeckendorf's Madison Avenue offices to try to halt his acquisitions. But, in his own inimitable way, Zeckendorf confounded the British Expeditionary Force. He made his deals at breakfast, while driving in his car, at midnight meetings--and sometimes tumbled his British directors out of bed at 3 a.m. by transatlantic phone to ask them politely to approve deals they knew little about.

Unaccustomed to that sort of guerrilla warfare, the British retreated in some order. They still keep their position in Zeckendorf Property Corp., an affiliate that they insisted be spun off from Webb & Knapp in 1961, where they are joint partners with Webb & Knapp with 47.5% each (the remaining sliver belongs to Alcoa). Zeckendorf Property has under way 13 promising urban development projects, including Manhattan's Lincoln Towers, and Zeckendorf plans to continue linking up with partners to build mw development projects--but to keep ouTsiders out of Webb & Knapp. He hopes that assiduous real estate trading can keep the company going until the income from the projects begins to roll in.

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