Meridian’s Yoni Goodman Joins Ronnie Levine, Seth Grossman at Green Pine Real Estate
By Cathy Cunningham September 19, 2024 5:00 pm
reprints
Yoni Goodman, who was president of Meridian Capital Group for six years and with the firm for more than a decade, is joining two of his former colleagues at the newly-formed investment firm Green Pine Real Estate (GPRE), Commercial Observer can first report.
Seth Grossman and Ronnie Levine — both previously senior managing directors at Meridian — co-founded GPRE earlier this year. With Goodman now on board, all three will be principals in the new company, Goodman told CO.
“Green Pine is a private real estate investment platform, and we’re going to be focused on two main areas of investment: multifamily real estate, including an affordable element, and distressed CRE debt,” Goodman said.
On the multifamily side, the new firm will concentrate on value-add transactions on high-quality assets and partnering with best-in-class operators, Goodman said. In terms of target markets, GPRE will focus on “pro-business geographic areas with strong fundamentals and strong population, job and wage growth,” Goodman said. “We’ll be choosing markets over time that meet those criteria, but we’ll have a national focus that includes both market-rate housing and mission-driven affordable housing.”
On the distressed investment side, GPRE will be acquiring debt, but only loans that come with “consensual handover of title,” he said. “We’re not going to be focused on any situation where there’s drawn-out litigation.”
The distressed investing won’t be contained to the multifamily sector, Goodman said. Rather, “we’re going to go where the distress takes us,” he said. “We’re looking for distress in capital structures, not in real estate. So much high-quality real estate becomes distressed not because the building loses tenants or has bad occupancy or safety issues. It becomes distressed simply because it’s overleveraged — and that’s the type of distress we’re interested in.”
As part of its distressed investment strategy, the firm also will be buying sub-performing debt up and down the capital stack. “For the sub-performing investments, we’re focused on opportunities where the assets will stay with the owner, but perhaps the debt isn’t currently refinanceable, and needs a little bit more term, or requires us writing a preferred equity check to solve the gap in a refinancing,” Goodman said.
Goodman announced his departure from Meridian this summer. Levine announced his co-founding of GPRE last month after 19 years at Meridian as a top broker in New York, with Grossman revealing himself as GRPE’s second co-founder a few days later. Grossman spent 13 years at Meridian, most recently leading the brokerage’s Los Angeles and San Diego offices.
“On a personal level, I’m super excited to be partnering with Ronnie and Seth,” Goodman said. “I’ve known them for 20 years and you won’t find higher character guys in the market, and I think that their beloved status with both operators and also lenders is going to be critical to us sourcing deals in the early days.”
The trio had plenty of experience with lenders and borrowers during their time at Meridian, but Goodman underscores the fact that their brokerage days are now in the past, and GPRE is a straight-up investment firm.
There won’t be any brokerage or lending services offered — unless you include preferred equity, which some say is simply mezzanine financing in a cuter outfit — and GPRE will be a pure-play investment firm.
“Our goal is to build a high-quality portfolio of investments,” Goodman said. “We’re going to deliver great risk-adjusted returns, and we’re going to have a lot of fun along the way.”
Cathy Cunningham can be reached at ccunningham@commercialobserver.com
