Los Angeles-based fund manager Capital Group has completed its $210-million purchase of the $210-million Bunker Hill building it previously leased and is vowing to continue expanding its presence in the city.
Capital Group was the tenant at Bank of America Plaza, which we will now serve as the landlord. The 55-story tower at 333 S. Hope St. it was completed in 1974 and has long been considered one of the most prominent office addresses in the city. Capital Group has been headquartered there since 1978.
Bank of America Plaza at 333 S. Hope St. it was bought by the investment company Capital Group. This building also houses the firm’s headquarters.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The move to buy the building at a steep discount is part of a pattern of well-heeled tenants opting to own instead of rent in recent years as office property prices plummet due to the pandemic and the shift to remote work at many companies.
“We knew the best landlord we could have would be us,” Capital Group CEO Mike Gitlin said when the sale was first announced in April.
The previous owner of Bank of America Plaza, Brookfield Properties, defaulted on a $400 million loan and put the building on the market instead of facing foreclosure.
It was the largest office building in Los Angeles by 2026 and the largest in Los Angeles County as of 2023, according to real estate brokerage Colliers, which marketed the property on behalf of a court-appointed receiver.
Potential buyers for Bank of America Plaza include private and institutional investors from the US and overseas, said Mark Schuessler, a broker at Colliers.
Capital Group has been headquartered in the city of Los Angeles since its founding in 1931, according to Chief Operating Officer Rob Klausner. “We see it as an ideal place to invest as we consolidate our Los Angeles teams,” he said.
Capital Group is the largest residence in the building, occupying 350,000 square meters on 14 floors. It plans to gradually occupy another five floors as it consolidates employees from other offices in the city and Santa Monica.
“The best way to ensure a good location in downtown LA is to create what we call a vertical campus” with 2,100 employees, Gitlin said. “It was just this unique opportunity where the price was much lower than it has been historically, and it was selling.”
Bank of America is also a major tenant in the building and will continue to have its name up there. Other tenants include economics firm Analysis Group Inc., law firm Musick Peeler & Garrett and Alliant Insurance Services.
Capital Group has more than 9,000 employees in 34 offices in many countries. It manages $3.4 billion in assets for millions of wealth management and institutional clients, a representative said.
Owner-occupiers have risen as key players in the LA office market, now accounting for nearly half of all deals, according to real estate data provider CoStar, while the share of shopping center investors has dropped from 45% to 26%.
Office users from the public sector are among the buyers. The city of Los Angeles plans to buy a 35-story tower downtown for use by the Department of Water and Power.
Manulife US Real Estate Investment Trust said in April it will sell its high-rise at 865 S. Figueroa St. for $92.5 million pending approval by Los Angeles officials. It has an assessed value of $248 million.
Another major public buyer of downtown office building was Los Angeles County, which in 2024 bought Gas Co. Tower at $200 million, a sharp drop from its estimate of $632 million in 2020. District officials said at the time that the foreclosure sale was too good to pass up.
The district is gradually moving workers into a 55-story building at the base of Bunker Hill that was considered one of the city’s most desirable office buildings when it was completed in 1991.
