Amid financial crisis at UN, SG Guterres had considered selling posh NY official residence

Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said he had contemplated selling his official four-story residence in New York when he took charge as the UN chief to help resolve the deteriorating financial crisis facing the world body.

The Secretary General's official residence is in Sutton Place, an exclusive Manhattan enclave off the East River.

"Looking at the Organisation's overall finances, and its financial ratios, can be misleading. We have of course more assets than liabilities but not enough liquid assets. I cannot sell this building," Guterres said Tuesday in his remarks to the General Assembly's Fifth Committee on 'Improving the Financial Situation of the Organisation'.

He told the delegates present at the meeting that the first thing he did when he arrived in New York to assume charge as the UN Chief was to ask if he could sell the residence.

"I am not joking. It is a true story. I discovered that I couldn't, because the residence can only be sold to the United States of America when we close the doors in New York. Obviously, it is not something that is not, hopefully, going to happen."