Foreign Investment With a Difference

NEW YORK CITY-Mindful of the repricing under way and the increasing interest from overseas, commercial real estate veteran Rick Singer has joined forces with a Kuwait-based company to tap into the opportunities. However, Singer, a founding principal of Eastbridge Al Mal Holdings, says it’s an investment venture with a difference.

“We don’t want to be operators or developers; we don’t want any part of the operation,” says Singer, who formed Eastbridge Al Mal in partnership with other real estate and energy executive and Kuwait-based Al Mal Investment Co. “We want to be the finance company that an owner or acquirer comes to because they need new equity. My view also is that local owners and operators tend to best understand the value of any asset and the opportunities, so why go compete with them directly?”

With its headquarters in New York City, Eastbridge Al Mal is pursuing a strategy of working with owners in partnerships that can develop over time, Singer tells GlobeSt.com. “Unlike many of the typical funds that have a lot of money on the sidelines for real estate right now, we don’t want to be the entity that stands on its own equity to either restructure a deal or buy a deal,” he says. “We want to do it with partners and we want to do it with lead partners.”