Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Loews Corp. Chairman Jonathan Tisch paid a record $48 million for a co-operative apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Tisch purchased a unit on the 11th floor at 2 East 67th St., according to the document posted yesterday on the New York City Department of Finance Web site.

The price Tisch paid was a record for a Manhattan co-op, said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc. The previous record was set in January when a co-op at 1060 Fifth Ave. sold for $46 million. Rupert Murdoch held the record before that when he bought a penthouse at 843 Fifth Ave. for $44 million in 2005.

An llth floor apartment in the building, at Fifth Avenue, is listed on StreetEasy.com, an online real estate service, for $40 million and features 14-rooms with four-bedrooms and Central Park views. StreetEasy lists two other units in the building: an eight- bedroom for $39.5 million and a two-bedroom for $22 million.

Loews owns 50 percent of Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., the world's second-largest deepwater oil driller, and 90 percent of CNA Financial Corp., the Chicago-based business insurer. Loews spun off Lorillard, the oldest U.S. cigarette maker, into a separate public company in June. It had owned the tobacco company for more than 30 years. Loews sold Bulova Corp., the watch-making company, for about $250 million in January.

Laurence Tisch and Preston Robert Tisch started Loews when they bought a New Jersey hotel in 1946. The company's holdings also include a chain of hotels and a 53 percent stake in gas pipeline company Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP. The family owns more than 20 percent of Loews, according to Bloomberg data.

Loews has a market value of about $19 billion.

Tisch declined to comment on the purchase, said Loews spokeswoman Emily Goldfischer.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Marcinek in New York at lmarcinek1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 6, 2008 11:14 EDT