Breslin Realty
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Breslin Realty, founded by Wilbur Breslin in the postwar years, is one of Long Island's largest real estate development and holding companies.
In 1994-95, Breslin Realty was to have gone public as an REIT, with its NYSE IPO underwritten by Merrill Lynch.[1] The IPO was called off following exposure of substantial distortions and questionable or fraudulent statements in the firm's SEC filings, as announced by Richard DiDonato, addressing a meeting of the Brookhaven Town Board in early 1995, on behalf of a civic group. The most serious of several inaccuracies was a claim that a gigantic discount mall was in the final stages before construction on Parcel 13 of the North Shore Shore Properties (a.k.a. "WillyWorld") lands near Yaphank NY, with all governmental approvals being finalized, and anchor shores already recruited. This particular mall, representing over 10% of the value of the Breslin Realty REIT, had apparently never been mentioned to anyone except the SEC, not even Breslin's own planning consultants, who still believed Parcel 13 had been set aside for a sports and arts center.
DiDonato's announcement, and the shocked comments of Town Board members and others, were accurately reported in Newsday in the following morning's paper, but the story does not show up in Newsday's online archives.
No criminal charges were filed, based on the logic that the stock was not actually issued, and therefore no investors were actually defrauded. As of 2006, Breslin Realty seems to be as prosperous as ever, having somehow weathered the real estate storms of the 1990s.
