Ben Ashkenazy is gearing up to go on the offensive.
The Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. scion amassed $750 million in funds to purchase properties to add to his commercial empire, Crain’s reported. Specifics on investors were not disclosed, though he tapped his own funds — which makes up a good portion of the pool — and previous supporters, who have included the Saudi royal family and the Kushner clan.
“It’s the most attractive [market] I’ve seen in a long time,” Ashkenazy told Crain’s in what he deemed his first media interview in a quarter century (he appeared at The Real Deal’s New York Forum in May 2024).
Ashkenazy is eyeing retail and hospitality acquisitions over a two-year period, pursuing buildings with overleveraged owners stuck selling at deep discounts.
The owner is on the comeback trail. He’s lost a number of prominent properties — including Faneuil Hall in Boston and Union Station in Washington, D.C. — and has faced lawsuits and scrutiny centered on his strategies.
Ashkenazy “at all times had the money to cure [his] repeated defaults but simply refused,” David Scharf, an attorney for a lender in the Union Station debacle, said in a court document. His refusal to step away from the D.C. asset after a foreclosure sale drew a sharp rebuke from a federal judge.
He also sparked an ugly dispute with members of the Gindi family, leading to lawsuits, countersuits and a display of embarrassing text messages in open court. The two sides reached a settlement in September and relations have been outwardly copacetic since then, with Isaac Gindi even attending the March wedding of Ashkenazy’s son.
Nevertheless, since 2019, Ashkenazy’s net worth has been halved, though Forbes still estimates it at a healthy $1.6 billion. His portfolio is believed to be worth around $10 billion.
Even with a recent history of contentious — and occasionally, very public — disputes, the weight of the pandemic and interest rates may lead lenders and others in the industry to give Ashkenazy another chance to recover from his recent foibles.
“The best owners have defaulted on loans and lost buildings due to the aftereffects of Covid and interest rates tripling,” said former Colliers executive Scott Latham. “That doesn’t make them bad people, and I don’t think it will be perilous for Ashkenazy.”
His first step may be selling the vacant former Barneys flagship store site at 660 Madison Avenue in New York, which he’s been reluctant to sell for anything less than $1 billion.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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Ben Ashkenazy goes on the offensive
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