Daily News from New York, New York • 43

$88.50 $7W6 $4L06 -1 OEM win (tit I mm fim HI 1 OjTl iLxf 1 ji Y'fl 1 Tito iIl'HIvMiI'HT REAL ESTATE By PETER GRANT Daily News Business Writer Leona Helmsley is selling the trophy Graybar Building and two other plum midtown office towers to veteran developer Stephen Green for $165 million. Green, the brother of Public Advocate Mark Green, edged The mayor, Coliseum all that jazz Mayor Giuliani yesterday released his plan for a $45 million jazz theater for the proposed mega-development at the New York Coliseum site. Joined at a press conference by jazz great Wynton Marsalis, Giuliani said that the theater tied to Lincoln Center will insure that New York remains the jazz center of the world. The announcement ends a six-month delay in the $1 billion project caused when the mayor and the MTA squabbled over Giuliani's insistence that a theater be included. Giuliani won because he has veto power.

With the theater issue resolved, the MTA will now go back to the five finalist developers and a decision is expected in about two months. Peter Grant Murdoch's deal on the $65.06 -i I it! out a crowded field of competitors to grab the Art Deco landmark on Lexington between 43rd and 44th and nearby office buildings at 1466 Broadway and 25 W. 43rd St Losing bidders included such big names as Harry Macklowe, Steve Witkoff and Andrew Penson. The deal is one of Helms-ley's largest transactions so far since she decided to unload most of the $5 billion real estate empire that her late husband, Harry Helmsley, left her after his death last year. That decision set the stage for what is becoming one of the Big Apple's biggest real estate feeding frenzies in a generation, involving some of the city's best-known buildings and developers.

Green, who built a $200 million empire by buying and upgrading fixer-upper buildings, is emerging as a big buyer of properties that have gone for years without major improvements. "We understand these buildings better than anyone else in New York City," said Green, who last year took his company, S.L. Green Really, public in a $212 million offering. Green is planning major overhauls of all three properties, which were neglected for years while Leona was preoccupied battling her partners and her tax-evasion conviction. Green's plans promise to speed improvements of the Times Square and Grand Central areas, which have been enjoying a huge infusion of new investment in recent years.

The Graybar Building, for example, rises above Grand Central Terminal, which is in the midst of a $200 million renovation. The Chrysler Primestar slow tracEx THE ffCKER 5M to settle BCCI involvement In a quiet end to an affair that rocked the capital in 1991-92, venerable Washington insider Clark Clifford and his former law partner Robert Altman agreed to pay about $5 million to settle civil fraud charges in the BCCI international banking scandal. Neither Altman nor Clifford, a defense secretary under President Lyndon Johnson and adviser to several other Democratic presidents, admitted or denied wrongdoing. Altman, 50, who practices law in Washington, agreed not to reenter the banking industry without the Fed's approval. Because of Clifford's age and ill health, the central bank dropped such an action against him.

Faulty fees The $50 annual fee paid by most individuals, companies and organizations in the U.S. for Internet addresses may be an illegal tax, according to a ruling Federal Court Judge Thomas Hogan in D.C. He issued a temporary injunction preventing the government from spending the money as part of a suit filed by owners of Internet addresses. Dubious dealings The National Association of Securities Dealers ordered Iselin, N.J.-based brokerage A.S. Goldmen and three employes to cough up $305,000 in fines and pay $1.1 million in restitution for allegedly ripping off customers by manipulating the securities of a tiny technology company called Innovative Tech Systems.

Silver's golden Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor known for his Midas touch, has turned to silver. The chairman of Berkshire Hathaway said in an unusual news release that his corporation has purchased 129.7 million ounces of silver in the past six months. That much silver, now priced at a nine-year high, represents more than 20 of the world's estimated silver supply. The home teem New home sales slid 9.3 in December at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 777,000, but not enough to prevent 1997 from registering the most sales in 19 years. December marked the sharpest decline in more than two years, while November's sales rate of 857,000 was the highest monthly rate in 11 years.

For all of '97, sales totaled 800,000, up 5.7 from '96 and the highest total since 817,000 in '78. Sales of existing homes last year totaled 4.21 million, bringing new and existing sales to just over 5 million, the most ever. DEVELOPER Stephen Green is taking the Graybar Building and two others off Leona Helmsley's hands for $165 million. Building, across the street, also is scheduled for a huge repair job by its new owner, developer Jerry Speyer. Meanwhile, the 16-story building at 1433 Broadway, at 42nd St, is in the heart of a redeveloping Times Square.

Helmsley is selling off her holdings partly because demand for property is at a 10-year high, driving up prices. She was not disappointed in yesterday's deal. Green was forced to pay top dollar for the three buildings, which throw off less than $15 million a year in profits, experts said. The deals are complicated because Green is actually buying only one of the buildings 1466 Broadway outright In the case of the Graybar and 25 W. 43rd, he is actually buying long-term leases that stretch well into the next century.

But Green said yesterday that the buildings are well worth the money he's paying given his past success at improving real estate and the unique qualities of the properties. "The Graybar Building is the kind of building you never see up for sale," he said. "It comes along once a decade." Software group hard on Microsoft Under attack by government officials, Microsoft also is taking a hit from one of its own. The Software Publishers Association unveiled a list of principles, declaring that the nation's 100-year-old antitrust laws have an important role to play in making sure that no competitor goes too far in promoting its own computer code. Microsoft immediately denounced the.

Software Publishers Association, to which it pays $100,000 dues annually, for a "charade" and charged the association had been "co-opted by a few competitors who want to use the government as a weapon against Microsoft" Rwtar at it," Keeney told reporters, adding that the bureau will assess the deal's potential impact on cable rates, competition and rivals' ability to get cable TV programing. The Justice Department also is looking into the proposed transaction to make sure it doesn't stifle competition in the fledgling direct-to-home satellite television market Primestar's attorney, Phil Verveer, said he expects the department to make a decision either before or around the same time as the FCC. "We would anticipate before too long having serious discussions with the department about what it has concluded as a result of its inquiry." Murdoch had been seeking Though he's accustomed to getting his way, media mogul Rupert Murdoch will have to wait until at least April before he gets a decision on a proposal to merge his satellite TV business into Primestar Partners. "We've told Primestar that we don't expect action in the first quarter," said Gina Keeney, chief of the Federal Communications Commission's International Bureau. Primestar Partners was formed by the nation's biggest cable companies.

It ranks as the country's second-largest direct satellite broadcaster behind DirecTV. The deal is subject to approval by the FCC and the Justice Department "We are taking a hard look RUPERT MURDOCH won't get his answer until April. an established partner for his nascent American Sky Broadcasting unit since May, when a deal to merge it with EchoStar Communications fell apart. The deal with Primestar was announced in June. Tha ncltl Praaa.