— This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on June 4, Wednesday.
Welcome to the CNBC Business Daily.
U.S. non-farm payrolls will be released on Friday.
A Reuters poll expects about 218-thousand jobs were created last month, with the unemployment rate rising to 6.4%.
But weak jobs growth and still-skittish employers are putting the brakes on U.S. real estate, which has been slow to recover from the recession.
With bigger tenants harder to come by, office landlords are looking to change their business model. CNBC's Diana Olick tells us how.
In a sparce space in Crystal City Virginia, more than a dozen small companies barely stand out from each other. But they are plugged in... to a fund that aims to serve them at every level.
[Paul Singh, Founder, Crystal Tech Fund] "What we're doing is kind of doing it top down from here. We're saying, hey let's dangle all of this money in front of these high growth companies and let's make them a compelling offer of where they can live, work and play."
Venture capitalist Paul Singh has funded hundreds of start-ups, but recently he noticed a new niche:
[Paul Singh, Founder, Crystal Tech Fund] "The gap now is in the middle. Where you have some revenue, whether it's a million bucks in revenue, seven or ten in people working for you. It's hard to raise the money you need at that gap. But it's also hard to find office space. Where do you actually put them?"
If you're Singh's new 50 million dollar crystal tech fund, you put them here.. in a collaborative work space, owned by Vornado, one of the nation's largest publicly traded REITs.. which also happens to be an investor in the fund.
[Mitchell Schear, President, Vornado] "Crystal City has always been and will continue to be sort of a strategic value oriented location. We happen to have twenty six buildings, eight million square feet in this location."
But the shrinking Federal budget cost Vornado some of its usual government and defense tenants, so Schear sought out a new strategy.
[Mitchell Schear, President, Vornado] "What we mean by that is ya know the creative types, the younger types, what we call in this area the stem types ya know science, technology, engineering, and math."
Types like Patrick Smith...
[Patrick Smith, Founder & CEO, Power Supply Inc] "We are creating a network of chefs that make healthy meals...."
Smith's power supply is both a beneficiary of the Crystal Tech Fund and a Vornado tenant.
[Patrick Smith, Founder & CEO, Power Supply Inc] "I can grab Paul and ask his opinion of something I can talk to one of the other companies, there's a lot of synergies among all of us. I really do think when people look back at sort of what we're doing here I think this will be kind of viewed as sort of the venn diagram of venture capital, high growth companies, and city building."
In fact, Vornado is already planning to convert one of its nearby office buildings into a 250 unit apartment building... so all these new tech workers could have a very short commute home.
Diana Olick, from Crystal City, Virginia.
That wraps up this edition of the Business Daily.
I'm Sri Jegarajah, reporting from CNBC's Asian headquarters
CCTV Script Part 2
[Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, IEA ] "Today, there is a lot of oil coming from the United States, for example the Shale revolution from Brazil, from other countries, but they're going to run out of steam in the next four or five years. We will need growth coming from the Middle East and if it doesn't come, we may expect an additional $15 of pressure upward to the prices, which is definitely not good news for many consumers in the world."
Louisa Bojesen: $15 by when?
"2025, for the next 10 years."
Louisa Bojesen: Also I just want to ask you - the World Petroleum Congress in Russia is coming up and we just had the St. Petersberg Economic Forum take place and we saw quite a few countries dropping out from the St. Petersberg Forum due to the difficulties that exists between Russia and Ukraine at the moment. Do you anticipate that the countries would pull out of a Congress such as this one?
"It's up to the countries to decide but when I look at the Russia-Ukraine crisis, it reminds us once again how important energy security is than formulating energy investment decisions. It's a very good reminder for the European countries and beyond."
Louisa Bojesen: do you think we'll see drastic changes by European countries to reduce their reliance on Russian gas?
"I think many European countries will look at alternatives to the Russia gas and other key suppliers. But we also have to see that Russia is and will remain a cornerstone of the global energy system for many years to come."
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