BERKLEY ACQUISITIONS LLC MANAGEMENT

  • Eli Braha

    Eli Braha, 55

    Principal

    A Brooklyn, NY native residing in Manhattan, Mr. Braha is the managing member of Berkley Acquisitions LLC, a Commercial Real Estate Acquisitions Company. He attended public school at Abraham Lincoln H.S. and then entered CUNY, Bernard Baruch School of Business. He is a self made businessman and is the eldest son of Joseph Braha, who immigrated to the US in 1954 and is the patriarch of a third-generation textile merchant trading family with real estate holdings. His global business expertise encompasses world travel to more than 50 countries for commercial trade with multi-national business domestically and in Canada, Asia, its subcontinents, Western Europe, the Middle East and Central and South America. Through Braha's Investments et al, Mr. Braha has been involved in the real estate industry for over 3 decades. His success in the business derives from his persistence and ability to develop and maintain relationships with credible contact sources, and negotiate, develop, promote, structure consult, syndicate, advise and market real estate properties. His core capabilities focus on creating exposure to market trends, analyzing market need, facilitating the procurement of tenants and coordinating hands-on day-to-day management of business operations.

    Mr. Braha understands the potential and long-term benefits associated with "value oriented income providing investment properties." He has succeeded through implementing and executing projects by applying a hard work ethic and a sound business plan. Mr. Braha has been involved in the formation and raise of capital as a developer and lead syndicator of commercial real estate in the capacity of principal and property manager, facilitating leasing deals, acquiring all types of commercial properties, and consulting and co-investing in real estate entities. He has acquired, owned, developed managed, and operated over 100 buildings in 14 states containing an aggregate in excess of 13 million square feet of those collective holdings in his past and present portfolio. His partners have been comprised of private equity consisting of over 100 family members, friends, and close community members.

    Mr. Braha is of the opinion that there are potential opportunities and finds under the current financial market climate and bases his strategy on the overall impact of the soft economic downturn on the real estate environment. Proper valuations, coupled with mid and long range projection planning, including accounting for a coming period of inflationary pressure, select assets can be a formula for success. Learning from his past Real Estate experiences, that knowledge has taught him to be patient, waiting for market timing to apply his value oriented strategy. Consistent with the current situation, punctuated by the lack of liquidity that is creating stagnation, coupled with lost confidence in the CMBS markets and other economically pressed securities in this recessionary period, he is poised to bring that success to fruition and is excited about the status of the current market. Over the past two years, Mr. Braha has positioned Berkley so that is poised to take advantage of the current and upcoming deflated real estate market. Acquisitions have been targeted in the $50MM to $2.5B asset class, specifically identified in strategic capitol investment markets.

  • Allan J. Heiney

    Allan J. Heiney, 55

    Chief Investment Officer

    Mr. Heiney is a Brooklyn, NY native, is a graduate of Peter Stuyvesant High School in New York and has both Master’s and Bachelor’s of Science degrees in Optics and Applied Physics from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. Mr. Heiney was the Chief Analyst for a Real Estate Investments and Acquisitions firm beginning in 2003. In this capacity, Mr. Heiney dealt with all aspects of closing deals on dozens of properties and has assisted, as a consultant, with the analysis of over 100 deals for a wide range of clients. Through his insight as an engineer, he has shown clients “think outside the box” concepts and strategies for managing their properties with an eye towards creative repositioning and partial redevelopment. Mr. Heiney holds a NY State Real Estate License in good standing.

    More recently, Mr. Heiney has partnered with Mr. Eli Braha of Berkley Acquisitions to capitalize on the current availability of market readjusted, high value properties and commercial asset portfolios in the $50MM to $2B range, primarily in NYC. In his role as Chief Investment Officer, he has overseen development of financial modeling and projection, engineering assessment, research and has delivered further due diligence guidance to Berkley’s investors, providing a firm platform from which to make strategic investment decisions in the pursuit of such high profile properties as the properties listed in this document.

    As President of Certified Property Management, Mr. Heiney manages numerous commercial, retail and residential properties. He has been performing this function since 1995 and is involved in more than the usual aspects of managing his properties such as producing cursory engineering and property condition reports and leasing. He presently handles all aspects of property management for Berkley Acquisitions, MEC Management, Alicia Associates and Damar Management, all of which are located in the 5 boroughs of New York.

    Prior to getting involved in real estate, Mr. Heiney exercised his technical competence in his role as an engineer. He was instrumental in growing several Fiber-Optic based telecommunications start-up companies, one of which he founded: DiPlex expanded upon Mr. Heiney’s sole patent and proved to reduce the size of components for Fiber-to-the-Home components by three orders of magnitude. DiPlex was absorbed by Prizm Ventures in 2002. He is the author of four other patents and numerous scientific publications, talks and invited presentations in ultra-high speed (femtosecond) optical measurement, self mode-locked vibronic solid state tunable lasers, edge-emitting LED based fiber lasers, optical coupling of semiconductor lasers to single mode fibers and their packaging, laser damage mitigation on optical surfaces in the inertial confinement fusion laser optical train, laser assisted chemistry, and magneto-optic non-reciprocal optical circuits. He has worked at such world renowned technology firms as: Sarnoff Corporation (formerly RCA Central Research Labs), Allied-Signal Corporation (now part of Honeywell), Lytel Division of AMP Incorporated, and Exxon Research & Engineering Company.

  • Jack Hazan

    Jack Hazan, 36

    Director of Acquisitions

    Mr. Hazan has a background in finance and investment banking. Mr. Hazan began his career 14 years ago as a financial advisor and asset and money manager for his clients. Mr. Hazan expanded his base through creative financial structuring and engineering with derivatives and investment grade debentures. He is currently with Berkley Acquisitions, a real estate investment firm focused on commercial opportunities in and around New York City. Utilizing his experience in investment banking and through his wide and expansive knowledge of various asset classes, the firm is able to entertain acquisitions in hotel, retail, residential, student housing and office properties. Mr. Hazan is licensed with the National Association of Securities Dealers as a Securities Trader and General Securities Principal.

    Mr. Hazan has successfully raised millions of dollars in equity for public companies. He assisted with the raise of $15 Million for a biotech company but was carefully identifying the next trend in the capital markets. In 2001 after several successful years in asset management and investment banking he made the decision to focus his efforts on real estate. Utilizing his securities background, he began by building positions in real estate Investment Trusts.

    In 2004, utilizing his Wall Street experience and investment banking capabilities, Mr. Hazan established himself as an NASD (now FINRA) Broker/Dealer to capitalize on the growing demand for private equity participation in Real Estate related investments. The firm would structure and syndicate the equity for investments in Real Estate partnerships. In 2008, deciding to focus all of his time pursuing his passion for real estate development.

    In the period from 2003-2008 he participated in a total of 12 separate private equity real estate partnerships in the capacity of both limited partner and in some cases principal and general partner. Some of the notable projects included: 717 Fifth Ave., a retail condominium occupied by Hugo Boss and Escada; Trump Plaza, Jersey City, a $470 Million luxury residential condo development in the waterfront district of Jersey City; and Gulls Cove, Jersey City, a $125 Million 330 unit residential condo development also in the waterfront district of Jersey City. Another notable partnership was for a portfolio of mixed use properties totaling over $100 Million including: Wyndham Garden Inn, Comfort Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn and Candlewood Suites, LA Fitness health clubs, and several shopping centers with tenants such as Food Lions, Citizen Bank and CVS.

    Mr. Hazan acted as a Principal partner in a Manhattan real estate investment company to capitalize on two development opportunities. 241 5th Ave, a 70,000 sq ft. 134 room luxury boutique development on 5th Ave to be operated by Kimpton Hotels, a nationwide hotel operator which owns and manages over 11,500 rooms throughout the US. The other development project is a vacant parcel in lower Manhattan totaling 225,000 sq ft. which was planned for a student housing dormitory development; he was successful in securing an LOI for a net lease of the proposed building from Educational Housing Service, representing Pace University.

    Utilizing his investment banking and Wall Street capabilities Mr. Hazan recently completed a six month consulting contract for the Carlton Group to establish and launch a $100 Million distressed debt fund for the firm. He arranged and brought all the necessary materials to market, and promoted and distributed this fund throughout the broker dealer community and institutions, setting up agreements for the firm to sell such funds through various independent broker dealers.