Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/62026
NEWS MAKERS The deal maker ALEX BERMAN SOLD ONE PORTFOLIO AND IS PLANNING THE NEXT By Beth Karlin W 236 SCT / MAY 2012 ity properties, says Tom Grier, managing director in the real estate and lodging invest- ment banking group of JPMorgan, which assisted in the transaction. "Alex not only identified a unique situation, but capitalized on it opportunistically and also was able to effectively monetize it," Grier said. EPN retained two centers valued at a to- HEN ALEX BERMAN and his family came to Chicago from the Soviet Union in 1978, he knew he wanted to be a businessman. Ex- cept that he wasn't sure what a businessman did, exactly. Berman was only 18 at the time, and his only education on private enterprise was a Russian book he had read that decried international conglomerates for exploiting workers. "When I arrived here, I was think- ing about business, but, frankly, I didn't know exactly what it was or what it would en- tail," he said. He seems to have learned a lot since then, though. In January his EPN Group retail real estate firm and its Israeli partner, Elbit Imaging, earned a $200 mil- lion profit when they sold 47 U.S. shopping centers to Blackstone Group and DDR Corp. for $1.43 billion. The portfolio represents most of the EDT Retail Trust, which EPN had acquired from Australia's Macquarie DDR Trust two years ago. EPN anticipated holding the property for five to seven years, but the offer was too good to refuse as more capital became available and competi- tion for properties heated up. Even when other investors were backing off, Berman saw the potential for high-qual- tal of $43 million, and now the firm is plan- ning to raise some $500 million to $700 mil- lion in a new fund. "We want to assemble another portfolio," said Berman. Retail real estate is a high priority, but the partnership