Senlac Ridge Partners rebranded to GreenBarn Investment Group, according to a Thursday announcement. The Morristown-based firm also announced that David Schonbraun will come on board as managing partner.
Schonbraun, who was previously head of U.S. real estate credit at the Carlyle Group and, prior to that, chief investment officer of SL Green Realty Corp., will join David Welsh in leading the company and expanding its structured credit and opportunistic debt business, following the recent closing of the firm’s strategic partnership with Rithm Capital Corp., a manager of assets and investments focused on the real estate and financial services industries.
Schonbraun brings his deep experience and wide-ranging expertise to the company to help deploy capital across a range of real estate opportunities including opportunistic loans, securities and hard assets.
GreenBarn was co-founded in January 2020 by Welsh and former principals of Normandy Real Estate Partners immediately following the sale of Normandy’s fund management and operating businesses to Columbia Property Trust. During the past three decades, GreenBarn’s leadership team has led the execution of over $40 billion of real estate equity and debt transactions.
In changing its name to GreenBarn Investment Group, the firm heads into the next phase of its evolution. In December 2022, Rithm acquired a 50% 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. The new investment vehicle will provide GreenBarn with up to $3 billion in buying power to be used for the acquisition of underperforming or distressed assets and loans as well as investing in strategic equity partnerships with best-in-class 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, which focuses on a broad range of commercial and residential investment opportunities in select urban and transit-oriented suburban markets throughout the U.S.
“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,” Welsh, founder and managing partner, said. “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.”
“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.”
Schonbraun brings more than 20 years’ experience in the commercial real estate industry in evaluating and investing capital across a broad mix of product type and markets.
