Going through an old Time magazine dated 09/11/1978 I came across an article in their Economy and Business section about the World Trade Center (W.T.C.)  that I thought was interesting.  The title of the article “High Interest: But the W.T.C.’s not for sale” discusses the fact that Deutsche Bank of Frankfurt was interested in buying the W.T.C. for resale to as yet unspecified German clients.  The Germans referred to the W.T.C. as Das Welthandelzentrum.  At the time this article Deutsche Bank had in terms of assets (about $50 billion) ranking fourth in the world, after San Francisco’s Bank of America, New York’s  Citibank and France’s Caisse Nationale de Crédit Agricole. It further notes that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey own W.T.C. and it cost $1 billion by the time it was completed in 1972.  At the time it was completed there was an oversupply of office space in New York City and only after the 1973-1975 recession did the office space fill up to where it now stands at 90% occupied.  However the W.T.C. remained a drain on the Port Authority at the time of this article due to the fact that the office spaces were rented at bargain rates.

It notes at the end of the article that in the past two years that with other German Banks, Deutsche Bank had bought Pennzoil Place and Shell Oil Tower in Houston.

(Comment:  A couple of things regarding this article caught my eye.  First of all the date of the magazine: September 11, 1978, 23 years to the date of September 11, 2001 and second,  no page number for this article, I looked everywhere, no page number.  Also Deutsche Bank has been in the news a lot lately in regards to financial and corruption issues within the bank.   Sooo, I thought I would pass along what I thought was a rather interesting article considering how events have been unfolding especially over the past 18 years).

Blog published 02/11/2019