He was immortalized in “Barbarians at the Gate” as one of the premier M&A men of his era, sporting "an oiled-back Gordon Gekko haircut atop 5 feet, 10 inches of icy Protestant reserve." His deal roster is a snapshot of big-ticket American business, from RJR Nabisco 🍪 🚬 to a Time-Warner merger that fended off hostile bidder Paramount. He went on to lead Lehman Bros., capped his career running Blackstone’s hedge fund arm, took on a chairman role at Two Sigma, and along the way built a serious art collection (housed at the Getty condo, no less) 🖼 .

So far, v much on-brand for J. Tomilson Hill. But there’s one wildcard bet on the opposite end of the glam spectrum: The billionaire is an anchor investor in a 2-member LLC doing 103-unit Section 8 renovations in Donora, PA (population <5,000) and 150-unit rehabs in Pikeville, Kentucky. Hill’s involvement w/ Heritage Housing (run by Jonathan Rose Cos. alum David McCarthy) is part of a fascinating emerging trend in CRE: Captains of Finance & high-profile investors taking their talents to a corner of the market that’s near-invisible to those who don’t live & breathe it. Let’s take a closer look👇

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From a Heritage bond issue report reviewed by The Promote, the firm says it partnered w/ Hill to “finance the acquisitions business, combining affordable housing expertise with substantial financial capacity.” Translation: McCarthy does the work; Hill writes the checks. Heritage, which has 1,700 (incl. pipeline) AH units nationally, seems to do classic 4% LIHTC preservation plays in Tier 2/3 markets, in which aging Sec. 8/HUD legacy properties are recapped w/ 4% credits and tax-exempt bonds to extend affordability. And Hill’s playing in the space at a particularly interesting time, what w/ the Trump admin. slashing HUD budgets, big Qs about how Sec. 8 will be funded going forward, and LIHTC’s boost in the Big Beautiful Bill.

Ziel’s newfound zeal: HFZ Capital founder Ziel Feldman was one of the poster boys of frou-frou Manhattan condo development, before he became one of its cautionary tales. After HFZ imploded amid distress and fraud allegations (see Meir, Nir), Feldman went dark for a time, before reinventing himself as the silent partner in workforce-housing developer GoodHomes, as The Promote revealed in Jan. GoodHomes targets adaptive reuse of distressed/obsolete hotels, extended stays, and assisted-living facilities, converting them into multifamily targeting 60-120% AMI tenants.

Brookfield: Will Blodgett’s Tredway announced its expansion into Texas in March, w/ the $66M acquisition of a 1,200-unit Sec 8 portfolio. What it didn’t reveal at the time was its partner on the deal, which looks to be AUM Gobbler ™ Brookfield: the mailing address for the member LLCs is Brookfield HQ at 250 Vesey, and Mike Eltcin from BAM’s CRE tax group is listed as the point of contact. Tredway declined comment.

Brookfield & Tredway have teamed up on AH deals before, incl. in Coney Island & Far Rockaway. They were also JV partners on the 🐳 that got away, the Signature Bank rent-stabilized loan portfolio, which Related bagged in what we dubbed the “Lufthansa heist” of CRE finance.

Promote Insiders: Read on for the full story at the end of this newsletter 🔒 👇

On Thursday, April 23, The Promote will be hosting an in-depth chat w/ Lightstone Group founder David Lichtenstein, a consummate dealmaker x asset classes. We’ll talk retail money, development, special sits, & a lot more – David is really in the mix. This virtual event is only for subscribers to The Promote Insider, so sign up for that and we’ll send you registration deets. (Insiders: See reg. link at end of this email 🔒 )

Intriguing set of moves in Chicago by Churchill Real Estate (Justin Ehrlich, Sorabh Maheshwari): The lender is ramping up its foreclosure actions against disgraced CRE dealmacher Mark Nussbaum, hitting him & his partner Eliazer Tauber with dozens of such actions, per TRD. Churchill is also moving to foreclose against other out-of-state investors (Shlomo Lisauer, for one) who made multifamily bets on Chicago’s South Side, and then saw those deals fall into distress. These investors originally landed financing from lenders such as CliffCo & Sharestates, per TRD, and those notes were later transferred to Churchill affiliate Tryon Street.

Nussbaum is, of course, facing grand larceny charges, and is the central character (along w/ deceased investor Mendy Steiner) in what is shaping up to be the largest CRE escrow fraud case in recent NY history.

Churchill is an IYKYK player in CRE finance, primarily known as a warehouse lender - i.e. an entity that provides lines of credit to nonbank lenders. And it is deeply embedded in the ecosystem through a couple of strategic alliances: In ‘23, Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp. bought into the firm. And at some point in the last few years, prolific debt fund Madison Realty Capital also bought in.