Chicago private-equity veteran Bryan Cressey and his wife have been identified as the buyers who paid $20 million in March for the full-floor penthouse on the 89th floor of Chicago’s Trump International Hotel & Tower. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Chicago private-equity veteran Bryan Cressey and his wife, plastic surgeon Iliana Sweis, have been identified as the buyers who paid $20 million in March for the five-bedroom, 14,260-square-foot full-floor penthouse on the 89th floor of Chicago’s Trump International Hotel & Tower.
The sale of the unit was the third-highest-priced sale on record of any kind of home within Chicago’s city limits. A real estate source in the Trump Tower confirmed that Cressey and Sweis were the buyers.
Cressey, 73, is the co-founder of private equity firm Golder Thoma Cressey, which teamed up with future Gov. Bruce Rauner to become known as GTCR. Cressey then cofounded another private equity firm, Thoma Cressey, followed by Cressey & Co.
Cressey and Sweis are familiar with the Trump building, as Sweis bought a lower-floor unit in the building for $2.7 million in 2009. And Cressey, a longtime Barrington-area resident, purchased one of the hotel condos in the building in 2015 for $1.68 million.
The couple bought the $20 million penthouse through an opaque Delaware limited liability company whose name is a variation on the couple’s wedding date and location.
Chezi Rafaeli, the real estate agent who represented the couple in their purchase, declined to confirm the couple’s ownership. Lawyer Judy DeAngelis, who represented the couple in the purchase and who also receives the unit’s tax bill, asked a reporter “where you got those names” before declining to comment further.
Cressey did not respond to a request for comment, while in a phone interview, Sweis denied buying the unit.
Read more here.
Leave a Reply