By Joshua Burd
The Morristown-based firm known as Senlac Ridge Partners is now GreenBarn Investment Group, while it has added a commercial real estate industry veteran as a managing partner.
In a news release, the newly branded investment manager said David Schonbraun joins its leadership team alongside founder David Welsh. They will work in tandem to expand the firm’s structured credit and opportunistic debt business, following the recent closing of its strategic partnership with Rithm Capital Corp., a manager of assets and investments focused on the real estate and financial services industries.
Schonbraun, who was previously head of U.S. real estate credit at The Carlyle Group, is also the former chief investment officer for SL Green Realty Corp. GreenBarn said he will bring more than 20 years of deep experience and wide-ranging expertise to help deploy capital across a range of real estate opportunities including opportunistic loans, securities and hard assets.
The privately held firm, which invests on behalf of domestic and foreign institutional and high net worth investors, currently owns a mixed-use portfolio of some 2.3 million square feet with a development pipeline totaling over $1.5 billion.
“We are thrilled to welcome David to our firm as a partner and look forward to benefiting from his exceptional relationship network, expertise and strong track record of performance,” said Welsh, a managing partner with GreenBarn. “Over the nearly 20 years that we have known each other, David and I have successfully invested and collaborated on numerous transactions. We believe there is an extraordinary opportunity to deploy capital into underperforming or distressed assets in this current environment and David’s deep relationships, coupled with his extensive structured credit and finance experience, will be a huge asset for us as we move to capitalize on real estate opportunities across a diverse range of product types and markets.”
The company, meantime, said it was changing its name as it heads into the next phase of its evolution. In December 2022, Rithm acquired a 50 percent interest in the firm’s operating business and formed a joint venture with GreenBarn for up to $250 million of general partner capital to be deployed in its targeted investment strategies, providing the latter with up to $3 billion in buying power for underperforming or distressed assets and loans and investments in strategic equity partnerships with top operators and developers.
GreenBarn’s strategic partnership with Rithm will help to accelerate its growth in building a vertically integrated and diversified commercial real estate debt and equity business focused on a commercial and residential investment opportunities in certain urban and transit-oriented suburban markets throughout the United States, the news release said.
“This is a unique opportunity for me to join a talented and committed group of industry professionals to leverage our combined experiences and relationships to pursue value creation both in a transitioning real estate market, as well as over the long term,” Schonbraun said. “Our extensive expertise in underwriting, acquiring and executing complicated, value-added development and repositioning strategies, identifying unique value creation opportunities, as well as originating and investing in opportunistic debt and structured credit products truly differentiates our capabilities and platform.
“I look forward to working with David and the GreenBarn team, and partnering with Rithm as we focus on further building a premier real estate investment platform spanning commercial real estate debt and equity.”
Previously overseeing SL Green’s real estate equity and debt acquisitions, dispositions, alternative investments, borrowings and structured finance, Schonbraun has closed more than $30 billion in transactions, the news release said. The Princeton University alumnus was also instrumental in the formation of Gramercy Capital Corp, a publicly traded firm focused on the specialty finance business, while he led SL Green’s structured finance and special servicing platforms.
Senlac was formed in early 2020 by former principals of Normandy Real Estate Partners — including Welsh, Finn Wentworth and Giorgios Vlamis — after they sold the company to Columbia Property Trust.
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