2006-01-01 Blum Capital Partners Sign 10 Year Lease

Blum Capital Partners, recently renewed its office lease at Westlake Building in San Francisco for another 10 years. Located in the heart of the financial district, this award winning building on Montgomery Street also holds the offices of Senica Capital Management and Aston Pereira & Associates.

Blum Capital is a private equity firm managing $5 billion worth of domestic and international assets. Blum Capital has been with Westlake since 1985.

Its no secret that Richard Blum chose Westlake Building because of its good fengshui.*

A look into Blum's Office: A Tibetan prayer wall. Beneath lines of colorful flags flapping in the wind, a heap of flat stones bears images of goddesses, temples and mountains and the Buddhist mantra, "Om Mani Padme Hum". But the traditional Mani wall, often found outside Himalayan villages, is 14,208 miles from Kathmandu, according to a makeshift wooden sign stuck in the embankment. Indeed, it stands on the balcony of this chairman's private office, beneath the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid in downtown San Francisco.

Excerpted from the Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2004

* Fēng Shuǐ (Chinese: 風水 literally, wind and water pronounced "fung shuway"), is the ancient practice of placement to achieve harmony with the environment.