In the traditional power circles of Wall Street, Hollywood and real estate, one way to gauge clout is through philanthropy: Scanning the lists of board members at the Met, Lincoln Center and MSK can tell you a lot about a city’s current financial and cultural pecking order, because they are a basically-perfect barometer of your ability to bring money.

The same principle carries over to the world of the frum, though the arenas are different. Consider Bike4Chai, a grueling multi-day, 180-mile ride through the Poconos for children’s charity Chai Lifeline that’s long been a magnet for CRE finance and SNF heavies. The org savvily puts all rider & donor numbers out there, displaying a keen understanding of the one-upmanship nature of fundraising. (One market player suggested it deserves its own HBS case study, such is its prowess.) Which means that, each summer, the frum finance world publishes a leaderboard. And this year's is worth reading closely.

At the starting line July 29 at the Kalahari Resort, you’d see healthcare honcho Sam Stein; the Syrian posse of Dwecks, Gindis, and Jemals riding as Team SYclist; Eli Schron, son to ♦️ and principal at megalandlord Cammeby’s; and, of course, Ralph Herzka & his Meridian Capital crew – Abe Hirsch is known to eat hills for breakfast. But scroll the fundraising totals and two names pull away: Herzka and Stein. 👇

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Herzka is the event’s top fundraiser, and it isn’t close: north of $11M pulled in since '12, per the data – a guy who had the juice to make an ask, and the industry would answer. But his recent numbers tell a different story. After raising ≈$1M or more for 7Y straight, he failed to crack $500K in ‘24 and ‘25, and stands at $302K for ‘26 at the time of this writing – interpret that how you will. His much watered-down Meridian has been back in good standing w/ the agencies for a year-plus, and his donor list is still blue-chip: the 🐐 Gary Barnett, Heller Realty, and Moshe Majeski, who just started working for Brazilian banking scion Alberto Safra.

As for Stein: The SNF titan (Peace Capital, Complete Care) has been catching up fast, breaking the $1M threshold for 4Y running. He's now at $6M+ on his lifetime haul, and just peek his donor list this year: Alberto Safra himself, leading the pack, and contributions from Welltower, CFG Bank, and the Brothers Sasouness of Dwight Capital. And if you had any doubt about what's actually being measured here, look at the messages: Some are personal (“Stay hot my friend,” writes a donor simply listed as Fishy); others are strictly business (“In appreciation of your WorldWide relationship,” writes title dealmaker Ike Marvet). Ride on! 🚴‍♂🚴‍♂

What listeners are saying: “I absolutely love the podcast. The only issue is, I always crave more when it ends. Kind of like at the end of Dazed and Confused how you want to see Wooderson and Pink go to the Aerosmith concert." - Chris Graham, one of Barry’s key guys at Starwood

On Wednesday, we published our 3rd installment of In Conversation, our series of Insiders-only longform chats w/ those making a dent in the CRE business. Northwind’s Ran Eliasaf chopped it up w/ us on the business of running a debt fund; we dove into land loans, SNFs, his new warehouse line, and whether he misses the equity side (“I don’t.”) Sign up for Insider now to read the full interview – we have a bunch of these w/ spicy names coming up.

We’ve said our piece on Nathan Berman/David Werner’s crisis at the Pfizer building office-resi conversion in Manhattan – here, here, and a full 360 on the pod here. But this thing continues to spiral: Gothamist is now reporting that GACE, the engineering firm on the project, confirmed that the reinforcing steel meant to buttress the building addition was never installed. “The structure was not reinforced as GACE’s design required,” said the firm’s Chris Behan. The Times later gave their version of the story the front-page treatment. The fallout will continue, and it’s now worth watching whether it’ll have any impact on Berman’s other big current office-resi jobs – 111 Wall being the highest-profile of them. Unlike many other developers, Berman’s Metro Loft tends to self-perform, and also per sources owns a 🍕 of the construction manager CCM, so the buck really does stop w/ him. More to come, surely. 💉

El pasado, es pasado: What’s done is done – in this case, a $400M wipeout – and it’s now time to look ahead. That was Scott Everett’s response to the hullabaloo around S2’s recently disclosed total loss on its multifamily value-add fund. He spoke to CoStar (which has produced some huggable S2 coverage over the years), saying that S2 put “too much money to work in 2022” and thus left it heavily exposed to the floating-rate reaper, Trump’s immigration crackdowns, and a supply surge. His LPs have “been super kind even though they are obviously disappointed in the loss,” Everett said, adding that S2 had waived up to $15M in management fees 🙏 and that he had personally invested $110M to try and save properties. S2 is now looking to buy the debt on a number of the distressed properties, which it would then look to restructure and fold into a new continuation vehicle. Memories are short, fund cycles are long, and you can just post through it – something Everett knows as well as anyone.

See also: The Alan Stalcup Interview

Talent wanted: We’re hiring a closer to help us get to the next level on brand partnerships. This is the most engaged audience in B2B media, and we want to find the right person who can accurately convey that obsession to the right partners. If you’re reading this, you already know how we do things. So please reach out if you’re a good fit or send this to someone who might be our person. Thank you! 🙏