AWH Partners
AWH Partners is a privately held real estate investment, development and management firm formed by Russ Flicker, Jon Rosenfeld and Chad Cooley. Following successful careers at Blackstone (Mr. Flicker and Mr. Rosenfeld) and Related (Mr. Cooley), each launched ventures in 2009 to pursue distressed real estate investments. With similar investment strategies, the partners started working together in 2010 and ultimately formed AWH Partners, LLC to pursue value added and distressed real estate investments. The partners have completed in excess of $400 million of hotel investments, and are managing or have completed hotel redevelopment projects totaling more than $100 million. In early 2012, AWH acquired Lane Hospitality, a top-tier national hospitality platform formed in 1980, to expand AWH’s capabilities in the hospitality sector by aligning its institutional investment expertise with Lane’s first class operating platform and industry-leading executive team. In May of 2013, AWH rebranded Lane: Spire Hospitality.
Real Estate Specialization
| Hotels |
Investment Type
| Acquisition/Fee Simple |
Investment Style
| Value-add |
Russell Flicker
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of AWH Partners. Mr. Flicker has experience working on complex transactions for some of the largest, most successful investors, operators and developers in the world. Prior to founding AWH Partners, Mr. Flicker served as the chief investment officer at Ian Schrager Company. During his tenure at Ian Schrager Company, Mr. Flicker oversaw the underwriting, operational strategy and acquisition of the Ambassador East Hotel in Chicago, Ill. Prior to time spent at Ian Schrager Company, Mr. Flicker managed Blackstone Real Estate Advisors’ redevelopment and repositioning team, straddling acquisitions and asset management. In that role, he recruited and hired a team that underwrote, repositioned, redeveloped and developed, entitled and/or refinanced 20 hotels, residences and office buildings throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico, including Carmel Valley Ranch, Boca Raton Resort & Club, One Thousand Ocean Boca Raton and El Conquistador Resort.
Chad Cooley
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of AWH Partners. As a veteran of the New York-based real estate investment, development and management company, Related Companies, L.P., Mr. Cooley worked across disciplines, property types and markets while he managed numerous investments totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars, through all stages of the acquisition and development process. His responsibilities ranged from sourcing, analyzing and negotiating acquisitions and financing to managing large construction and design teams as well as asset managing properties in The Related Companies’ portfolio. With a $15 billion property portfolio, The Related Companies has a reputation as one of the most sophisticated and successful institutional development companies in the business. Mr. Cooley struck out in 2009 to pursue opportunities in the ailing hospitality market having witnessed the worst year-over-year declines in hotel performance in recent memory, and predicting continuing widespread distress among hospitality lenders, owners and operators.
Jonathan Rosenfeld
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of AWH Partners and has 15 years of experience in real estate, both in an advisory and principal capacity, and has invested in real estate in both private transactions as well as in public market securities. Mr. Rosenfeld was previously a senior analyst at Wesley Capital Management, a $1 billion real estate dedicated hedge fund and at Scout Capital Management, a $2 billion long/short equity hedge fund, where he was responsible for investments in public real estate securities across various product types and geographies. From 1998 to 2006, Mr. Rosenfeld was at The Blackstone Group, spending the first two years in the mergers and acquisitions group, focused on real estate related transactions and six years as a member of Blackstone Real Estate Advisors, investing the firm’s private equity real estate funds. While at Blackstone Real Estate Advisors, Mr. Rosenfeld executed transactions across various product types. Mr. Rosenfeld received a BS in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a dual concentration in Finance and Accounting, where he graduated summa cum laude.
Bernard Michael
Michael, Levitt & Rubenstein, LLC 60 Columbus Circle, 20th Floor New York, NY 10023 Practice Areas: Real Estate: Business (100%) Law School: New York University School of Law