• Billionaire hedge fund manager Dan Och has sold his penthouse condo 15 Central Park West. Sort of. The apartment, which had been owned by a trust in his wife's name until now, was sold yesterday to DAAJJ, LLC, a company that happens to be controlled by Och. A bit of year-end tax planning? A separation of assets? The jury's out on this one. [Cityfile]
• The former co-op of Edythe Acquavella—the late wife of Upper East Side gallery founder Nicholas Acquavella and mother of Bill Acquavella—has sold. The three-bedroom apartment at 31 East 79th Street, which first went on the market for $3.75 million last year, sold for $2.9 million. [Cityfile]

• Two weeks after it was reported that Richard Gere had found a buyer for his condo at Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi, city property records indicate he's closed on the deal. Gere sold the 3,500-square-foot pad for $11 million, which is $1 million less than what he paid for it and $6.995 million less than what he was seeking when he first put the apartment on the market last year. As for who will be moving into Gere's former pad, he/she remains a mystery for the moment: The buyer is listed on the deed as Mercator 360 LLC. [Curbed]
• Brian Brille, Bank of America's former head of investment banking and its newly appointed Asia-Pacific chief, has closed on the sale of his 5,473-square-foot apartment at Trump Park Avenue for $14 million. Brille went into contract to sell the third-floor condo in October. [Real Deal, previously]
• Martin Begun, the husband of real estate marketing guru Louise Sunshine, has gone into contract to sell his 36th-floor apartment at One Beacon Court. The two-bedroom condo, which Sunshine's real estate broker son, Sam, listed for $6.75 million last month, is being picked up by a former JPMorgan investment banker who already owns an apartment in the building. [NYT]

Britney Spears turns 28 today. Erin Callan, the former CFO of Lehman Brothers, is turning 44. Lucy Liu is 41. Stone Phillips is turning 55. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is 70. Real estate marketing queen Louise Sunshine is turning 69. Nelly Furtado turns 31. Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel is turning 41. Author George Saunders is 51. And tennis legend Monica Seles celebrates her 36th birthday today.

• Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts continue to hunt for a new home, apparently. Although they still own the full-floor condo at One Madison Park that they purchased in 2007 for $6.05 million (and which they haven't had an easy time selling), they were recently spotted touring an unfinished loft at 120 11th Avenue that's on the market for $9 million. [NYP]
• Daniel Straus, co-founder of the insurance company Aveta Health and a major NYU donor, has purchased a new apartment on Park. Straus and his wife Joyce paid $5.4 million for an apartment at 888 Park Avenue. [Cityfile]

Erin Callan has had a tumultuous year, hasn't she? The former star at Lehman Bros can sit back and relax today. Not only has she landed on her feet (unlike so many of her former colleagues), it's also her 43rd birthday. Others celebrating: Stone Phillips is 54. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is turning 69. Real estate marketing queen Louise Sunshine is 68. Nelly Furtado is 30. Nate Mendel of the Foo Fighters is 40. Monica Seles is turning 35. Lucy Liu is 40. And Ms. Britney Spears—you've heard of her, haven't you?—is celebrating her 27th birthday today.

Real estate marketing pioneer Louise Sunshine sold her Sunshine Group to Corcoran in 2005. She's currently the development director at Izak Senbahar's Alexico Group.