The Promote Podcast
by ten31 Media
Your Commercial Real Estate Insider guide. From profiles of the biggest dealmakers to skyline-shaping transactions, we bring you the deals, breakdowns and war stories that move the market — for insiders, by insiders. From bad-boy guarantees to CMBS tranche warfare to syndicator sins, we cover it all. Each week, The Promote Podcast explores three of the most interesting and consequential stories in CRE, taking you well beyond the headlines and into the heart of the action. Hosted by the award-winning “Bard of CRE,” Hiten Samtani, along with no-BS institutional insider Will Krasne. Now a top 80 pod on Apple in "Business & Investing." Also check out our 3x/week newsletter for industry insiders at https://www.thepromote.com/
Episodes
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Live in NYC w/ "Large Loan" Verrone & Joe Lubeck
The Promote's first live show in New York brought together an invite-only crowd for cocktails and a no-holds barred conversation about capital stacks and characters. Our special guests were Iron Hound's Robert Verrone, one of the country's preeminent workout specialists and formerly head of...
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Whitehall: The Rise and Fall of Goldman’s CRE Machine
*Special Episode Alert* Before there was Blackstone gobbling up giant property portfolios and stripping them for parts, there was Whitehall: Dan Neidich's elite Goldman Sachs unit was for over 15 years among the most dominant forces in CRE investing. It raised the biggest funds, bankrolled the...
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Arbor's Looking Glass and Alexandria's Pipette Dreams
This week, it’s time to address the multifamily distress from the lens of the lender, specifically, one of the biggest ones: Arbor Realty Trust has been walloped on Wall Street- its stock is down 73% this year, it suspended its dividend, it’s the target of short sellers, and it’s been getting...
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The Apollo Program & Dirty Ground Games
This week, we break down an ingenious scheme that has wreaked havoc on several regional banks. Lad of Lakewood Shaya Prager became one of the biggest buyers of suburban office in the pandemic era – everyone wondered how his Opal Holdings could make the numbers pencil – perhaps his lenders should...
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Where Alpha Goes to Die & the CoreWeave Canary
This week, we dive into why the smartest guys in the room keep bellyflopping when it comes to CRE. Two Sigma’s recent retreat is part of a long line of edgy hedgies who’ve been humbled at the brick-and-mortar altar. We then head to the scene of a fast-moving car crash in the world’s hottest asset...
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Golden State Gimmes & Lument's Lament
This week, we get into the potential homecoming of a big agency lender: Lument is on the block, and sources point to a round-trip to its original home, the billionaire Hunt family out of Texas. We then head further west to the golden state, where the welfare exemption, a spiritual cousin of the...
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Mana From Hedgie Heaven & Blue Owl Force Majeured
This week, we need to dive into the real estate deal of the year – arguably, of any year: Ken Griffin is bringing Carnegie Mellon to Miami, a transformative gift for the 305 in so many ways. We focus primarily on 2 guys – Paul Darrah, who's responsible for making it happen for Griffin, and Moishe...
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Keep Calm and [No] Carry On
This week, it’s time to address the unrealized elephant in the room that is the biggest pain point in institutional CRE: Carry, or more precisely the lack of it. Thousands of the smartest guys and girls in the business have spent the last few years preparing for an outcome that never came....
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SF’s Advance Man: Cyrus Sanandaji On the Record
In this bonus episode, we sit down with Presidio Bay’s Cyrus Sanandaji. Cyrus is at the vanguard of the comeback in America’s most important boom-and-bust town – San Francisco. His firm made prescient bets on SF’s recovery as the city began to emerge from the black hole of Covid, while also...
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Lurin's FBI Probe & the CapStack Snipers
This week, we take stock of the tale of Lurin Capital, a multifamily syndicator that's now in the FBI's crosshairs. Jon Venetos was cut from very different cloth than the rest of the Sunbelt Dreamers, and his rise and fall are arguably even more cinematic. Next, it's a classic Manhattan tale of...
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The Last Tower & Blackstone's Lair Cake
This week, we visit CRE’s alpha lair, Blackstone HQ, where one of the industry’s top execs, global head of real estate Nadeem Meghji, is set to exit. His perch was among the best risk-adjusted seats in all business, but what does someone in that position do for their next act? And why is there so...
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Evergrande Delusions & Chitty Chetrit Bang Bang
This week, we dive into 2 operatic stories of ruin on different continents. We begin with the tale of Hui Ka Yan, a Chinese property tycoon who went from being a steelworker to one of the world’s richest men, before his firm Evergrande collapsed and sank the country’s real estate market with it....
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CW's Inside Man & Newmark's Weekend at Bernie's
This week, we put on our toques and head to the TSX, where Meyer Orbach and Josh Gotlib are on a fascinating multifamily caper with their REIT GO Residential. We then take a back door into a special-servicer war, with Greystone accusing rival CWCapital of stealing its trade secrets to poach its...
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Man on Wire: Michael Stern On the Record
In this bonus episode, we sit down with JDS Development Group boss Michael Stern, one of the builders synonymous with the luxury condo market in New York and more recently in Miami. Stern talks through home runs like Walker Tower in Chelsea, strikeouts (though he disagrees) like the Brooklyn…
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Only Mortals: The Reichmanns, Pt. III
The final part of our special trilogy on the Reichmanns traces how the mother of all megaprojects became a siren song for Olympia & York. Everything that had brought them to these heights – the creative financing, the cinematic self-belief, the ability to convince others and themselves they could...
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Apex Predators: The Reichmanns, Pt. II
Pt. II of our special episode on the Reichmanns takes us to the ultimate proving ground of Manhattan. We do a tick-tock of how Olympia & York pulled off the CRE deal of the century, buying 10 million square feet of prime office space for just $33 a square foot and beating up some of the city's…
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Men of Destiny: The Reichmanns, Pt. I
This special episode dives deep into the story of the Reichmanns, an extraordinary family that probably contributed more to the financialization of CRE than anyone else. It’s a tale of survival, grit, chutzpah, genius (on many fronts), generosity, unchecked ambition, heart-stopping leverage, and...
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Stairway to Heaven & Parkmerced's Odyssey
This week, it’s time for some California dreamin': We ascend Orange County’s Ziggurat, a stairway to heaven or SoCal’s biggest development clusterfuck, depending on your flavor. The hulking structure and the quest to sell it showcase government incompetence at its most extreme. We then head up to...
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Mailbag: CRE Mt. Rushmore, Would You Rather & Wildest Tenant Stories
In our second mailbag episode, co-host Will Krasne tackles your most unhinged CRE questions: self-managing vs. 3rd party, nightmare tenant interactions, his CRE Mt. Rushmore and many more. Sponsors: 1) This episode is supported by Bravo Capital, a leading HUD and bridge lender. See how their...
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Skyscraper Triage & Data Center Power Struggle
This week, we ride up a rickety construction elevator to the 21st floor of the Pfizer Building, where a major scare threatens to consume New York’s signature office-resi conversion project. We do a 360-degree analysis, from the bricks n’ sticks to the financials and the all-important narrative,...
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S2pocalypse Now & Pimco's Puppet Master
This week, we wade into the underbelly of big-ticket restructuring, looking at Pimco’s $1.8B lifeline on its disastrous bet on the Columbia Property Trust office portfolio, and how the lenders that stepped in after the default have set themselves up for a massive payday. The whole journey is a...
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Texas Chainsaw Massacre & The Man Who Knew
This week, we take stock of the legacy of Alan Greenspan, the long-serving Fed Chair who has died at the ripe old age of 100. Greenspan’s moves, for better and for worse, shaped the CRE market as we know it today. Next, we visit the rapidly gentrifying swamp that is Gowanus, where Sam Charney is...
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Stern Ambition, Nuveen's Belly Flop & Private Credit's Gypsy King
This week, we load up on chips n' vinegar and take you with us on an extraordinary journey into British caravan country. Embattled mobile-home king Robert Bull's tale brings together gypsies, Norwegian beauty queens and New York financiers – and yes, it is very much a CRE story. Next, we slip…
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Not Easy Being [SL] Green & TPG's Shelf Life
This week, we dive into the high-stakes, high-reward (not for shareholders tho) world of SL Green, the mighty REIT that is New York’s largest commercial landlord. From a deal junkie standpoint, SL Green is king of the hill, but no matter what it does, it can’t seem to get Wall Street to love it....
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Hail Caesar, CoStar's M&A Mania & a ZOMbie Developer
This week, we look at Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta’s $18B megadeal for the Caesars entertainment empire - this is really an excuse for us to talk Tilman, one of the industries "C"haracters. Next, we dive into CoStar’s $800M acquisition of home-data firm Zonda – part of Andy Florance’s quest…
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Enemy at the Rates, Mayweather Gets KO'd & Newmark Nepomania
This week, we talk fear and loathing in interest rates: The 10Y and 5Y are going haywire and threaten to knock CRE's recovery off-kilter. Next, we discuss nepo babies running the asylum at Newmark: Howie Lutnick’s son Kyle has decided it’s his time to shine. And finally, we have to revisit one of...
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CRE's Paypal Mafia: The JMB Realty Story
In this special episode, we dive deep into the story of JMB Realty Corporation, one of the most influential firms in the modern history of CRE, with a playbook and an alumni network that continue to shape the industry today. You could argue that if JMB didn’t exist, real estate syndication would...
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S2's REIT Wipeout & A Lender's Extreme Show of Faith
This week, we dive into Sunbelt multifamily kingpin’s Scott Everett's (S2 Capital) audacious attempt to save his distressed portfolio via a private REIT – an attempt coming apart in real time. It's an opportunity for us to discuss the Sunbelt ZIRP-fueled boom/bust, the broader syndicator…
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Mega-Marriage of Convenience and Miami’s Abuelagate
This week, we discuss multifamily’s mega-marriage of convenience: After getting no love from the Street for being merely huge, multifamily REITs Equity Residential and AvalonBay are considering a merger. Will overuses the word “tectonic,” but it really does apply here, so we’re going to dive in…
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Aman’s Dirty Laundry & Atlanta’s Phantom Megaproject
This week, we have the this-is-too-weird-to-be-real tale of Forge Atlanta, a $3.8 billion megaproject with the most bizarro development team and history we’ve ever come across for a project of this scale. We know ground-up is smoke and mirrors even on a good day, but this is NEXT LEVEL. We then...
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The Frum Fraudfather & Pied à Terre Purgatory
This week, we finally tackle the story of Mark Nussbaum – the real estate attorney who became the nexus of the underground Orthodox CRE dealmaking world, facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in deals and "show capital" before it all collapsed spectacularly in a wave of lawsuits, criminal...
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Multifamily's Icarus: Alan Stalcup On the Record
"Property management companies made my spreadsheets lie." "We're gonna move the pref to a 17. Okay, okay, Tom. You're fucking me right now. You know that, right?" This week, we break protocol to bring you a no-holds-barred interview with the poster child of the Sunbelt syndicator boom/bust, Alan...
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Mass Alt-luence & There's Something About Rabsky
This week, we chop it up on how God is Smiling Upon Alts: The federal govt has put forward much-anticipated regulation that creates a smorgasbord of investment options for retirees – with major implications for CRE. Next, we discuss how Manhattan office has broken the $300 a foot barrier – twice…
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From BSDs to DSTs & a Lakewood Lad's SNF Summit
This week, we talk some takeaways from institutional real estate’s March Madness, the PREA conference – we’ve got the latest on what the industry's biggest allocators & fund managers are thinking about. Then, we SNF around that quirky asset class’ latest megadeal - Chuny Herzka’s $1.7B…
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Reubens on Rye and Apollo's Divine NNNtervention
This week, we dive into the life & times of two quintessential Men with Deep Pockets: Billionaire British Brothers David & Simon Reuben have become some of the most aggressive buyers of trophy hotel and retail assets across the country – many of them in various states of undress & distress. We…
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Savills Gobbles Eastdil & Ray Washburne's Second Helpings
This week, we dive deep into the M&A deal that's all anyone in institutional CRE can talk about. Savills – yes Savills! – is buying Eastdil Secured for $1.1B. That gives the Brits some serious capital-markets firepower stateside, but the devil lies in the details of the golden handcuffs. Next, we...
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Wartime Allocators & Rialto's Double Agent
This week, we have no choice but to tackle the topic of war. The conflict with Iran continues to roil markets and CRE's biggest allocators are in sixes and sevens. Fewer young people are going to college, which puts a big question mark on what's historically been one of the biggest drivers of…
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Larry's White Whale & Jamestown Puckers Up
In Ep. 50 (!), we trace Larry Silverstein's odyssey with the World Trade Center redevelopment, analyzing the new blockbuster Amex deal and the insurance, legal and financing battles that the developer has fought since 9/11. Next, we jump on our Zambonis and check out Jamestown’s push for a hockey...
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Times Square Trainwreck, Royal Renters and Blue Owl Bytes the Dust
This week, we look at the tragicomedy that is TSX Broadway, the Maefield/L&L/Fortress Times Square megadevelopment that came undone and left hundreds of foreign investors in the lurch. We discuss how complex ground-up projects can lay waste to capital stacks, and what can happen between partners...
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Limit-Up Hotel Kamikazes & AI's Brokerage Rout
This week, we dive deep into the story of Anbang Insurance, the Chinese insurer that went on an epic US trophy real estate buying spree, but flew too close to the sun. We trace the origins of Anbang's founder Wu Xiaohui, his multibillion-dollar acquisition of top US hotels include NYC's...
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House of Brookfield, Wholesale Shopping and a Condo Buyout Coup
This week, we discuss the House of Brookfield’s new overlord: Connor Teskey has a modest target – double AUM to $2 trillion. We talk about the labyrinth that is Brookfield’s corporate structure – Bruce Flatt's not going away – and what CRE’s role in the ramp-up will be. We then look at the flurry...
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Apollo's Sister Act, ICE Age & the Doomed Tower of Power
This week, we discuss how the Chrysler Building has laid waste to the best-laid plans of so many global titans. With Tishman Speyer reportedly coming back for another go at the Art Deco icon, we trace its rich and rollicking deal history, from Jack Kent Cooke to Abu Dhabi. We then discuss how the...
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A Condo Kingpin’s Next Act and Proptech Falls off the Wall
This week, we discuss second acts: Ziel Feldman has left the scandal-ridden past of his glitzy New York condo development firm HFZ Capital Group behind, and he's reinvented himself as an affordable housing player through his silent partnership in GoodHomes. We trace the wild arc of his career and...
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SNFing out Megadeals and Syndicator Patient Zero
This week, we discuss a redemption tour by GVA’s Alan Stalcup, Patient Zero of the Sunbelt multifamily boom/bust. He’s battling PGs, LPs and maybe even the SEC, but Stalcup is unapologetic. He sat down with Hiten for a pretty unplugged conversation, and we chat through our key takeaways. We then...
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Pinnacle's Bankruptcy Summit & Life Sci's Midlife Crisis
This week, we’re talking a glitch in the Morse code: MCR has failed to come up with the cash to consummate the take-private of Soho House, setting off a mad scramble. There’s more bad chemistry in the life-sciences space, with the venerable Beacon Capital Partners battling its operating partner…
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Windy City Tailwinds & Stadium Arcadium
This week, we talk Chicago – America’s Second City is now becoming top of mind for national multifamily players. We break down 2 significant deals: LaTerra’s monster AIMCO portfolio buy and S2’s debut. We then slip into our jerseys and look at the arcane world of stadium development – and all the...
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The Mayweather Whisperer: Jona Rechnitz (Rerun)
We're technically off this week. BUT, Business Insider dropped a banger of a read on Floyd Mayweather's tangled financial web, and somewhere at the center of that web is a character of great interest to The Promote Cinematic Universe: Jona Rechnitz was a New York real estate developer who was...
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Bluerock's Liquid Death, Soundstage Flops and OZK Walks the Plank
This week, we talk illiquid death – the Bluerock listing debacle says so much about the mark-to-magic happening in the nontraded REIT market. We then head to Hollywood where showbiz is turning into badbiz for Hackman Capital, HPP and others who went all-in on soundstages. And finally, we head to...
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Exotic Alts (w/ SomeraRoad's Ian Ross) & Taconic's Lab Leak
This week, we’re talking exotic alts – the far-flung corners of CRE that are starting to catch serious institutional interest. Think car washes, aviation hangars and the like. We're joined by Ian Ross, managing partner of SomeraRoad, to talk through the fascinating niche of aviation…
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Starchitects, Swedish Whales & an SF Hotel Heist
This week, we look back at the skyline-shaping impact of 2 starchitects who’ve just left us – Robert A.M. Stern and Frank Gehry – and then jump into a broader discussion about the pros & cons of name-brand architects. We dive into the industrial deal of the year, EQT’s 9M sf sale to Aum gobbler...
About this show
Your Commercial Real Estate Insider guide. From profiles of the biggest dealmakers to skyline-shaping transactions, we bring you the deals, breakdowns and war stories that move the market — for insiders, by insiders. From bad-boy guarantees to CMBS tranche warfare to syndicator sins, we cover it all. Each week, The Promote Podcast explores three of the most interesting and consequential stories in CRE, taking you well beyond the headlines and into the heart of the action. Hosted by the award-winning “Bard of CRE,” Hiten Samtani, along with no-BS institutional insider Will Krasne. Now a top 80 pod on Apple in "Business & Investing." Also check out our 3x/week newsletter for industry insiders at https://www.thepromote.com/
Hosted by
ten31 Media