Meticulous. Venerable. Influential.
These are just a few of the words that those who know Ian Gragtmans and Min Suh say have characterized the founders of Steady Capital on their multi-decade commercial real estate (CRE) odyssey. With a comprehensive depth of knowledge in the North American industrial, multi-family, land assembly, value-add, and redevelopment real estate markets, Ian and Min (founders) understand the complexities they involve and how to execute the strategies critical to creating very healthy returns for their investors.
Their strategic foresight and meticulous execution, especially evident in industrial and multi-family projects, have created a consistent track record of positive outcomes on capital invested, including avoiding the impacts of the recent interest hikes and the ramifications that followed.
A Visionary Approach: The Genesis of Steady Capital
Steady Capital is at the heart of their vision and drive; a venture designed to harness the dynamic shifts in CRE and uncover generational investment opportunities. They launched Steady Capital amidst seismic changes in interest rates and market conditions, positioning it as an agile entity, free from legacy constraints and with the agility and speed to capitalize on U.S.-based institutional-class real estate strategies.
At the core of Steady Capital lies a meticulous examination of real estate dynamics. This analysis carefully scrutinizes macroeconomic environments, business cycle directions, and local market conditions in ways that clarify and accelerate the ability to identify and act on investment opportunities.
A Strategic Partnership: The Family Office List
The founders have always understood the vital role that strategic partnerships play when it comes to their robust deal flow and achieving superior risk-adjusted returns. Their strategic utilization of the Family Office List (FOL) platform uniquely positioned Steady Capital to forge substantive partnerships with intelligent investors, including co-general partners (Co-GPs) sourced through FOL.
By leveraging the platform’s aggregation of like-minded investor information, Steady Capital optimizes its capital stack with partners who share a keen insight and solid moral grounding in investment practices, ultimately strengthening its position in the market.
A Forward-Thinking Venture: Projects That Matter
Yet another distinctive aspect of Steady Capital is the spearheading of projects that are ambitious and reflect its strategic market positioning. In Miami, Florida, Steady Capital is invested in a significant multifamily development adjacent to the Jackson Health District, which will deliver 380 units catering to the burgeoning demand in one of the nation’s largest health districts.
In Columbia, South Carolina, a new venture aims to build upwards of 385 multifamily units, capitalizing on the regional economic boom fueled by multinational investments in the region, such as that of Volkswagen Group Projects like these, as well as in-the-works ventures in New York City and Texas that include a mix of commercial and residential properties, highlight Steady Capital’s proactive approach to investing in high-growth areas.
A Distinctive Perspective: Seeing Challenge as Opportunity
While some would approach the recent volatility in the capital landscape with hesitance and apprehension, Steady Capital sees the challenges as a breeding ground for massive opportunities. Moving forward by embracing the turmoil, Steady Capital is capitalizing on the current and massive transfer of wealth from weakened hands to those of strength and resilience.
By utilizing selective investment approaches focusing on high-potential properties in strategically identified locations, Steady Capital can maximize its returns while minimizing risk. This approach, coupled with the anticipation of a continuing wealth transfer represents generational opportunities to skilled investors and delineates a bright trajectory for the future when it comes to navigating market uncertainties.
A Confident Future: There’s No Substitute for Experience
When it comes to navigating markets through adversity, experience is paramount. Decades of experience dating back to the early ’90s provide the necessary guidance and execution prowess to take advantage of market uncertainties.
Perseverance, integrity, and relationship-building form the ethos at Steady Capital and stand at the core of its strategies, enabling it to adeptly navigate the cycles of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that hinder others. This uniquely positions the founders to explore the burgeoning opportunities with a clean slate unburdened by past investments and a sharp eye on the horizon.
Insightful Leadership: The Essence of Innovation and Resilience
Steady Capital’s activity and investments in the CRE market epitomize the essence of strategic innovation and resilience and provide insightful leadership grounded in decades of experience. A forward-looking vision has positioned Steady Capital as a pivotal player that’s poised for continued growth and success.
As the firm actively seeks out intelligent investors to join its prosperity and commitment to navigating the complexities of the market with agility and integrity, Ian and Min are there to guide and will continue to be regarded as a beacon of stability and potential in the fluctuating real estate landscape.
With a three-pronged approach focused on real estate, agriculture, and Africa’s booming tech sector, Verdant Frontiers works to create sustainable, life-changing jobs while generating compelling investment returns.
Verdant Frontiers recently turned to Family Office List to help expand its fundraising base and improve fundraising efficiency.
Successful Outcomes
- Improving fundraising efficiency by allowing Verdant to target investors who have expressed interest in its offerings
- Establishing stronger and more significant partner relationships to expand Verdant’s reach to family offices
“We have investment opportunities where investors don’t have to choose between making a life-changing impact and getting financial returns. A lot of people see those as mutually exclusive … we think that the best investments in the best businesses are both.”
Scott Friesen, Founder and CEO of Verdant Frontiers
The Client: Verdant Frontiers
Verdant Frontiers aims to become the Berkshire Hathaway of Africa, with three areas of focus: real estate, agriculture, and technology
Verdant Frontiers began its work in Africa after the U.S. Embassy identified a pressing need for high-security African housing from both a seismic and a safety perspective. Within just a few years, Verdant Frontiers filled this gap by developing a 90-unit compound in Kenya and a 112-unit compound in Ethiopia.
Verdant Frontiers also has acquired two 1000+ acre citrus and avocado farms with a goal of building a portfolio of commercial farms in Africa growing citrus, avocado, and nuts. Over the next decade, Verdant Frontiers hopes to create 30,000 orchard jobs and grow this portfolio to a $1 billion value.
Finally, Verdant Frontiers has deployed a three-prong approach to participate in Africa’s expanding FinTech industry.
- Operating a FinTech venture capital fund
- Operating a startup studio to develop technology to fill gaps in the market
- Acquiring a financial institution to create a middle-class mortgage market
This multifaceted model allows Verdant Frontiers to fully immerse itself in the African industry, creating jobs and generating value for investors.
The Challenge: Improving Efficiency While Continuing Expansion
After raising more than $140 million from investors, Verdant Frontiers found its fundraising and outreach processes were becoming more time-consuming.
And with the increased public interest in social impact investing, Verdant Frontiers knew that to move to the next level, it needed to streamline.
This meant targeting family offices instead of just individual investors to provide a broader distribution of opportunities and create new partner relationships.
The Solution: Joining the Family Office Ecosystem
Family Office List quickly connected Verdant Frontiers to other service partners that were already part of the Family Office List “ecosystem.” With one partner company regularly pitching to family offices, and another specializing in family office digital marketing, these connections have already laid the groundwork for tangible rewards.
One unique benefit Verdant Frontiers quickly realized was that Family Office List’s data allowed the company to shift from “cold pitching” to marketing its unique investments to those who have expressed interest.
According to Scott Friesen, Co-Founder at Verdant Frontiers, “the prospecting comes through our network of relationships, but you just never know, what’s a good fit? Who is interested in investing in Africa? And so, being able to filter the list [of family offices] and have people that have a stated interest in investing in a particular region is really helpful.”
Verdant Frontiers also appreciated getting a detailed list of contacts within each family office. Not only did Family Office List provide Verdant Frontiers with basic office demographics like assets under management and focus areas, but it also allowed the company to review family office contacts to see whether any existing connection points were available. This information helped Verdant Frontiers create relationships with these offices more organically—a good starting point for a long-lasting partnership.
While Verdant Frontiers partnered with Family Office List only recently, its founders remain confident that the relationships they’re building now will help them push their innovative company into the next frontier of social impact investing.
In Summary
Verdant Frontiers reached out to Family Office List with a unique problem—it had raised capital from so many individual investors that its outreach process was becoming less and less efficient. By working with Family Office List, Verdant Frontiers was able to target more family offices and target family offices that have a specific interest in the investments that Verdant Frontiers offers. This strategy will likely allow the company to raise more capital without pitching to more clients.
If you’d like to learn more about Family Office List and how your company can benefit from its well-researched client lists, please contact us today. Our services are uniquely tailored to each partner’s needs, and we’ll work with you to identify your goals and help you achieve them.
Worth Avenue Yachts is a premier yacht brokerage firm that goes beyond selling and listing boats.
“One of the other things that we do as yacht brokers is that we act as consultants,” explains William Baldwin, broker.
In addition to managing luxury yacht listings, the company also facilitates charters and new yacht construction.
“We also advise comps and other market analyses to price yachts correctly and make informed consultations. This helps us coordinate surveys, sales agreements, and closing documents.”
With yacht prices starting in the low seven figures, these luxury seacrafts require an incredibly targeted strategy that demands heavy networking among high-wealth individuals. Baldwin quickly discovered that he needed a faster, more efficient method for identifying prospects across the country.
Below, we discuss how Family Office List stepped in to help Baldwin identify and build the connections he needed.
Positive Outcomes
- Worth Avenue Yachts secured a number of listings using Family Office Data
- Family Office List helped Worth Avenue Yachts streamline its outreach by providing quick and immediate access to a broader network of high net worth individuals
- When contacting family offices, Worth Avenue Yachts was able to craft a personal and more effective outreach with data from Family Office Lists
- Family Office List enabled Worth Avenue Yachts to better leverage their internal marketing data to identify active Yacht Club members within the Family Office community to better contextualize new relationships
“The contacts I made through Family Office List by far paid off more than contacts I made through cold calls.”
William Baldwin
The Challenge: Identifying Prospective Customers
The yacht brokerage business, just like any other ultra-high-end real estate brokerage, is all about your contacts.
When a family office wants to purchase or charter a yacht, it’s not by browsing the internet—it’s by leaning on its connections and talking to trusted peers to find the right vendor.
Knowing that personal connections were key to these yacht transactions, Baldwin felt his cold calling and generic research weren’t enough.
He had difficulty gauging potential customers’ interest before reaching out, wasting time and energy. And when he did reach out, he couldn’t access the right information to make a key personal connection.
Furthermore, because family offices tend to keep low profiles, Baldwin found himself reaching out on less formal channels, like social media, which he says isn’t necessarily where his target audience typically conducts business.
The Solution: Immediate Access to Family Office Lists
Clients like Baldwin and others in the luxury service market have found Family Office List’s contact lists incredibly valuable.
Baldwin was able to start his research with a quick search in the database for the term “yacht,” bringing up family offices with an interest in boating.
“There are a lot of fund managers and members of family offices that are very interested and yachting,” said Baldwin.
The platform’s search capability eliminated the need for the “spray and pray” approach that static and less detailed lists encourage. No one enjoys putting others on the defense from irrelevant cold calling, so the invaluable data of these family offices’ interests made outreach better received.
With family offices readily providing referrals to each other, Family Office List’s contact lists allowed Baldwin to make personal connections quickly and significantly expand his universe of potential clients and customers.
More specifically, our family office data can be filtered by assets under management, allowing Baldwin to target only those with sufficient levels of wealth to support a yacht purchase or charter.
Generally, $100 million is the baseline AUM threshold for single-family offices, while multifamily offices may manage several families’ assets to allow them to reach that $100 million threshold. By focusing on those family offices at the top of the AUM list, Baldwin can ensure that his marketing efforts are landing at their intended targets, freeing up his time to focus on relationship-building instead of scattershot messaging.
The Result: A Fast-Growing Network of Clients
“You’d think that I’d only find potential clients in New York or Newport, but I made a great connection in Chicago and the Midwest through Family Office List,” said Baldwin.
Once Baldwin combined the family office data provided by Family Office List with his own marketing data, he discovered something interesting—at least a dozen of his new family office connections were also yacht club members. This revelation allowed him to deepen and better contextualize these relationships, as well as target a new industry segment.
Another interesting—and unexpected—discovery was the multiple levels of connection that could be built among each family office.
Baldwin found that Worth Avenue’s yachts appeal to members of a family office themselves, but they can also be attractive to family offices’ fund managers and money managers, some of whom can afford yachts in their own right. In other words, even if a particular family office isn’t currently in the market for a yacht, it may know or be affiliated with someone who is.
All in all, Family Office List’s client services have helped Baldwin increase the speed and efficiency with which he builds relationships with his target customer base.
If you’d like to learn more about Family Office List and the benefits you can realize from working with family offices for yacht sales and brokerage, contact us today. Our well-researched and up-to-date client list will provide you with a major advantage over the competition.
London-based Conrad Family Office is one of our valued family offices with a robust international presence. Recently, Conrad Family Office began a real estate lending initiative in Guernsey, one of the islands on the English Channel near the coast of France. We caught up with John Clifford, Managing Director of Conrad Family Office, on how Family Office List is helping the firm achieve positive outcomes in its Real Estate lending plans.
Positive Outcomes
- Family Office List helped Conrad Family Office make valuable introductions both within the United States as well as the United Kingdom.
- These initial introductions have subsequently led to second- and third-degree connections that are helping to accelerate interest in the Guernsey lending initiative.
- Family Office List’s relationship-driven approach has yielded a compounding effect on the growth of the Guernsey lending network.
“Of all the Family Office list businesses we have been involved with, [Family Office List] is by far the best that we have dealt with”
John Clifford, Managing Director of Conrad Family Office
Conrad Family Office: Decades of Experience Spanning the Globe
Conrad Family Office has decades of experience in the Family Office space.
Headquartered in London, Conrad Family Office has long maintained a vast network of senior-level London connections. As a result, Conrad Family Office’s reach spans both domestic and international clientele.
Clifford emphasizes the reciprocal approach Conrad Family Office takes in its practice. For each initiative, one of the primary goals is to put together a strategic team of partners with complementary skill sets to achieve the best result for that initiative. Clifford explained that their Family Office initiative starts with the question, “How can we help you?” And if that initiative is better suited elsewhere, Conrad Family Office still helps by making the best match possible.
The Opportunity: Diving Deeper into the Guernsey Initiative
Conrad Family Office has known for some time that a Real Estate lending initiative, with a Guernsey focus, would present some challenges, as Guernsey’s regulatory environment is more nuanced and somewhat stricter compared to other Real Estate regulatory environments.
In addition to navigating Guernsey’s regulatory environment, Conrad also had to navigate the unfolding changes brought by Brexit as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. Like most initiatives, surprises are to be expected and tackled head-on.
In order to rise to the challenge presented by real estate lending in Guernsey and the accompanying current event caveats, Conrad Family Office knew it would need to put together a strategic team of partners with complementary skill sets.
The Result: Family Office List Helped Increase Networks for the Guernsey Initiative
From the Conrad Family Office point of view, Family Office List was quite different from other firms in a good way. Conrad Family Office views network building & business in general, as a journey rather than a race.
As a Family Office, it continuously receives invitations to Family Office events around the world. Instead of walking away with bags of promotional items and a receipt for a $5,000 event ticket, Conrad Family Office prefers a more human and reciprocal approach.
With Family Office List, Clifford has regular direct communication with Danielle Patterson, co-founder of Family Office List. Patterson checks in with Clifford frequently to confirm what initiatives Conrad are working on and how she can best assist.
Specifically, Conrad Family Office appreciates the highly personalized approach taken by Family Office List.
“We have different involvement with different parts of the world, whether it’s Washington, Geneva, Monaco, Dubai,” said Clifford. “If we were doing something, Danielle would announce it [to her network] for us — she’s done that in the past. And willingly, I would say. It’s nothing conditional. … It’s been more of a ‘We’d be delighted to do that.’ That’s refreshing.”
Conrad Family Office prefers a more private, bespoke approach to networking rather than one-time, catch-all events. Likewise, Family Office List prefers one-to-one, long-term relationship building based on proven value over time to build its network.
In the case of Conrad’s Guernsey initiative, Family Office List’s personalized, hands-on approach to networking is helping to accelerate the network Conrad Family Office is building for its Real Estate lending business in Guernsey.
“[Danielle] introduced us to a Real Estate and investment business who are quite interesting people, who themselves have introduced us to other people,” said Clifford.
If you are a Family Office and you are currently working on any initiatives for which you would like additional network-building support, feel free to reach out to us.
While Creed Venture Partners had extensive experience providing capital raising strategic resources, the firm had few family office contacts it could network with to find suitable investors. The firm turned to Family Office List to meet potential family office investors abroad as well as tap into the growing number of family offices interested in impact investing.
Outcomes
- Ability to network and connect with investors in global markets
- Access to local opportunities previously unknown or unavailable
The Client: Creed Venture Partners
“Time is probably our most precious asset. So, to the degree that Family Office List saves us time, that’s incredibly valuable.”
George, Owner of Creed Venture Partners
Creed Venture Partners is a Boston-born investment brokerage that focuses on impact investing in technology, healthcare, and sustainability. Their services include strategic advisory, strategic consulting, capital raising, consulting, and connections with commercial and strategic alliances. The brokerage’s goal is to partner with entrepreneurs using disruptive technology to address large global markets, helping those entrepreneurs find capital to grow their business.
The Problem: No Family Office Connections
While Creed Venture Partners was able to take advantage of many local funding opportunities in Boston and the United States, the brokerage realized it had little access to investors overseas. The firm needed a way into the world of family offices to successfully find new investment sources for its clients.
“There are many family offices that care about impact investing and about the themes that I’m involved in,” says George Harrington, managing director at Young America Capital and investment banker at Creed Venture Partners.
“Because I come from a largely institutional capital market background, I had very little exposure to family offices during most of my career. Family Office List was a way for me to educate myself and have a resource where I could become introduced to and network with family offices. So, it was a networking tool to a group of possible investors.”
The Need: Access to Family Offices Worldwide
To have more leads in the European and Domestic markets, Creed Venture Partners needed to find a source of qualified family office investors. Since Creed Venture Partners has had little interaction with Family Offices, they required a family office database that could be easily searchable and would allow them to filter offices based on funding capabilities and interests.
Furthermore, they needed access to a tool that provided them with key family office information to help them dive deep into their research and make an impactful outreach.
The Solution: A List of Global Family Offices
Using Family Office List’s global data and robust filtering tools, Creed Venture Partners was able to identify potential family office investors on a per project basis, sorting by industry and investment size.
Once they had a list of potential family offices, Creed Venture Partners drilled down even further, using the contact information provided by Family Office List for further research. The brokerage found the family office LinkedIn and website links very helpful in discerning each family office’s personality.
“There’s a lot of nuances to figuring out how friendly the [potential investor] is going to be, how open minded they’re going to be with new opportunities,” says Harrington. “So, I find all these [data points and resources] really helpful in determining, ‘Okay, is this going to be a friendly call?’ and just kind of preparing myself for an outreach.”
The Result: New Insights into Perspective Family Offices
“The nature of the platform is one where it saves me an incredible amount of time,” says Harrington. “Time is probably our most precious asset. So, to the degree that Family Office List saves us time, that’s incredibly valuable.”
Creed Venture Partners has taken advantage of the list by tapping into lasting relationships in both local and foreign markets. They now have an efficient way to contact Family Offices that have the capital they need for their impact investment clients. This will allow them to get more projects funded by Family Offices.
In Summary
By buying a Family Office List, Creed Venture Partners increased the number of leads they have access to. The list provided additional insights into potential investment partners to have more strategic outreach initiatives with a higher number of prospects.
Having a well-researched and updated prospective family office list gives brokerages a competitive advantage in the marketplace. If you are interested in learning how Family Office List can help you grow your high-net-worth contacts, contact us today.
BARNES New York tapped into the products and services offered by Family Office List, targeting high-end clientele interested in luxury real estate. While BARNES was well-established in France, Switzerland and other European markets, opportunities in new markets were needed to continue the growth of the business and its brand. New family offices were introduced to BARNES through the Family Office List’s database, resulting in positive outcomes for all stakeholders.
Successful Outcomes
- Reduction in cost-per-lead and other marketing expenses
- Increase in sales conversion rates and sales revenue
- Increased office efficiency and productivity without increased headcount
“I started putting in place a more proactive strategy, and as the first step, I acquired (Family Office List) solutions to get a better understanding of the landscape.”
—Yann Rousseau, Managing Director of BARNES New York
The Client: BARNES New York
The BARNES Group, and BARNES International Realty, include an integrated network of 100 agencies located in over 20 countries. The company focuses on luxury real estate in the world’s top destinations, leveraging its well-known real estate brokerage to network with buyers and property owners. Services offered by BARNES include exclusive property sales, private offices, investment realty, life annuities, property management, renovations and interior design. Much of the company’s business comes from family offices.
The Problem: How to Expand to New Markets
BARNES is well-established in France, Switzerland and in other European markets. The company wanted to expand its reach into new markets cost-effectively and efficiently. Finding new family offices with sufficient disposable income, or investment funds, presented a challenge.
The Need: High-Quality Global Leads
To connect with clients in new countries and markets, BARNES needed a vetted list of family offices to use as leads. This database of offices needed to be comprehensive and up-to-date, so that new clients could continually be identified. Since the majority of BARNES’ clientele includes family offices, Family Office List seemed the ideal solution. For BARNES to expand its business and gain brand recognition in new countries, a service provider with target market data was needed.
The Solution: A List of Global Family Offices
BARNES purchased access to the global family office list platform and went through the list, targeting countries where family offices were not previously known. Leveraging this global list and exporting the data to Excel for distribution to agents allowed BARNES to identify potential leads and new clientele. It also made it easier for BARNES to match agents with new clientele based on language and other preferences. Notably BARNES operates natively in English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Greek, Chinese and Arabic. Given that the Family Office List’s data is continuously updated, it provides an ongoing source of potential leads.
The Result: New Relationships with Luxury Real Estate Investors
BARNES was successful in identifying new luxury real estate clientele in previously unexplored markets around the globe, giving the company an edge over its competition. It allowed for expansion of the business and its brand in an efficient manner while improving performance metrics across the business.
BARNES’ cost-per-lead and similar marketing costs decreased as a result of the condensed and well-screened family office list. Similarly, sales conversion rates improved as did sales revenue, because agents could focus on the right target market. The overall productivity of the business improved without additional headcount.
In Summary
BARNES New York is expanding its luxury real estate brokerage into new markets and is looking to serve family office clientele. BARNES is succeeding in its endeavors by leveraging Family Office List for target market data. The potential client list provided to BARNES served as the catalyst for new introductions, networking and business opportunities. This included the sale of residential and commercial properties, allowing BARNES’ personnel to draw on a wide spectrum of skills and connections to satisfy customer requirements.
To learn more about Family Office List and the benefit of working with family offices for luxury real estate transactions, please contact us today. Having a well-researched and updated prospective client list gives service providers a competitive advantage in the marketplace.