Aman’s Dirty Laundry & Atlanta’s Phantom Megaproject

Summary

The Promote Podcast
Episode: Aman’s Dirty Laundry & Atlanta’s Phantom Megaproject
Date: April 29, 2026
Hosts: Hiten Samtani (“Bard of CRE”), Will Krasne

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Promote Podcast dives into three jaw-dropping stories from the commercial real estate (CRE) world:

1. Forge Atlanta: The saga of a $3.8 billion Atlanta megaproject crafted by a development team so unusual it seems beyond fiction.
2. Aman’s Dirty Laundry: How the ultra-luxury hotel group Aman is entangled with an alleged international fugitive and money launderer, threatening their investor relationships and headline risk.
3. CBRE and the AI Boom: How CBRE is thriving amid the AI and data center wave, despite a stock market at odds with its business fundamentals.

Expect sharp humor, brutally honest industry commentary, and in-depth breakdowns— “for insiders, by insiders.”

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Key Segments & Highlights

[00:13] - [02:17] Opening: The Weirdest of the Weird

• Hosts lampoon the state of due diligence and ethics in some of CRE’s biggest, wildest deals.
• “A penny stock company with the CEO as the sole full time employee… a Nigerian auditor in the SEC's crosshairs… crypto tokens, of course… defaulted seller financing. Twice.” – Hiten Samtani, [00:13]
• Notable Quote: “The crazier the facts, the straighter you tell the story.” – Hiten Samtani, [00:03]

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[02:17] - [09:52] Punch List: Weekly CRE News Rundown

Adam Neumann Returns: Flow House Bet

• Adam Neumann is back, raising valuation and buying condos in the hope of rental profits despite a wavering multifamily market.
• “No shoes, no shirt, no problem.” – Will Krasne, [02:56]

Vornado's Fraudster: Jared Solomon

• Ex-exec convicted of siphoning off $9.5M over 14 years, double-ending deals with self-controlled brokerages.
• “Honestly, this was like kind of a good scheme.” – Will Krasne, [04:24]
• Stole $700K/year in leasing commissions; used burner phones, pushed to exclude evidence of luxury spending.

Blue Owl Buys Sila Realty Trust

• Blue Owl expands, buying healthcare-focused Sila Realty for $2.4B, paying a 19% premium.
• “VWAP.” – Hiten Samtani, [07:26] (teasing the jargon)

King Street Capital Pulls Back on CRE

• King Street pulls out last-minute from a Miami deal, restructures its real estate division amid private credit market pressures.

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[11:14] - [21:05] Main Story #1: The Forge Atlanta Megaproject Saga

Webstar Technology Group: Smoke, Mirrors, and a Few Hundred Bucks

• Webstar: A penny stock company, one full-time employee, two contractors, and a three-digit bank balance.
  • “Cash on hand, end of September 2024: $154. ... End of September 2025: 7,789. So they've done a little bit better, you could say." – Hiten Samtani, [14:21]
• The Deal: Paid $800K down, taking a seller note for the rest ($33.7M out of $34.5M) – a “fugazi” structure, likely to default (again).
• Grand Scale, No Substance: Project cost inflated from $1.2B to $3.8B, projected profits of $4.5B and IRR of 121% over 20 years—numbers so “nonsense” as to be comical.
  • “What’s $1 billion at 121% IRR for 20 years?... $7.77 quadrillion. That is 75x current global GDP.” – Will Krasne, [17:15]
• Attempted Crypto Financing: Webstar plans to raise money via tokens—including for a water park with no permits, in a town without enough water.
  • “Honestly, it seems like a pump and dump. It seems like something Jordan Belfort would be selling.” – Will Krasne, [18:18]
• Auditor Issues: The company's auditor was indicted for aiding mass securities fraud in another case.
• Real World Risk: Fulton County approved a $220M+ bond issuance for the project.
  • “That’s taxpayer money, dude.” – Hiten Samtani, [19:57]

Memorable Moment:
Hosts calculate how little it would cost to execute a hostile takeover of Webstar, musing that the listener base could probably buy it outright.

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[22:20] - [30:15] Main Story #2: Aman Hotels, Money Laundering & Headline Risk

Aman Ensnared by an International Fugitive

• The Players: Aman Group, luxury hotelier; Caine International and Saudi PIF as major backers/investors.
• The Scandal: Benjamin Maureberger, alleged global money launderer tied to vile internet “pig butchering” scams, finds his way into Aman developments (Bangkok, New York, Dubai).
  • “He laundered billions of dollars that were ... allegedly generated through criminal activities.” – Will Krasne, [24:09]
  • Discussion of “pig butchering,” catfishing, and the harrowing human toll.
• Mechanics: Maureberger bought multiple Aman condos and, crucially, invested in the cap stack of new projects through shell companies—thus exposing the brand and its institutional backers.
• Implications: If institutional partners (Caine, PIF) learn money was laundered through their projects, there's severe headline, legal, and operational risk.
  • “If the brand gets tainted... all of this goes away because everything kind of works as long as no one thinks about it too much.” – Will Krasne, [29:06]
• Options Dilemma: Returning the tainted money admits the problem; ignoring it risks further fallout.
  • “One unfortunate wire transfer can unravel the whole kit and caboodle.” – Will Krasne, [30:15]

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[30:15] - [35:09] Main Story #3: CBRE’s Big AI/Data Center Bet

Crushing Earnings—Not That the Market Cares

• CBRE’s Q1 profit nearly doubles (up 95%), raises guidance by 20%, but stock still drops.
  • “We thought the brokerages had gotten crushed with AI but turns out it’s the earnings that are doing the crushing.” – Hiten Samtani, [31:37]
• Why the Disconnect? Markets are ruled by short-term sentiment, not business fundamentals.
• Data Center Gold Rush: CBRE is riding the AI-driven demand for hyperscale data centers, both in transactions and ongoing services.
  • “They’re selling picks and shovels and they have contracts for those picks and shovels.” – Will Krasne, [32:10]
• Meta Deal: CBRE is training thousands just for Meta’s data center buildout. Each project is a multibillion-dollar undertaking.
• Industry Shift: Data centers become CRE’s biggest profit driver, reshaping internal compensation and status games at brokerages.
  • “Property management’s really sticky... Meta is not going to hire me and five guys to go do this and build this company.” – Will Krasne, [34:46]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Everything is nonsense. Everything we’re about to say is nonsense.” – Will Krasne, [11:48] (on Forge Atlanta)
• “You keep going, move forward, go.” – Will Krasne, [08:02] (industry’s relentless optimism)
• “This isn’t Joseph Beninati or sketchy Russian guys… This isn’t even like that guy in Oklahoma City... But that’s more real than this is.” – Hiten Samtani, [19:13] (on Forge Atlanta’s credibility)
• “When you are making these types of bets for these types of brands with global reach... one unfortunate wire transfer can unravel the whole kit and caboodle.” – Will Krasne, [30:15]

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Timestamps for Essential Segments

• [00:13] Weirdest headline rundown (Forge Atlanta preview)
• [02:17] Weekly news punch list
• [11:14] Deep dive: Forge Atlanta and its financial engineering
• [22:20] Deep dive: Amman’s money laundering saga
• [30:15] Deep dive: CBRE, AI, and the data center services mega-trend

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Summary Takeaway

This episode strips away the press-release shine from CRE mega deals and exposes the wild, speculative, and sometimes criminal mechanics below the surface—balancing dark humor with serious caution. From Atlanta’s “phantom” megaproject to institutional embarrassment at Aman to CBRE riding the AI wave in real estate, listeners come away both better informed and deeply entertained.

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(To subscribe to The Promote Podcast or newsletter, visit https://www.thepromote.com/)

Transcript

[A]

So one journalistic maxim we've always tried to honor here at the Promote. The crazier the facts, the straighter you tell the story. So here goes. Let's just simply list the elements.

[B]

A penny stock company with the CEO

[A]

as the sole full time employee.

[B]

A Nigerian auditor in the SEC's crosshairs.

[A]

Crypto tokens, of course.

[B]

Defaulted seller financing.

[A]

Twice.

[B]

Twice. Sorry, yes. A nine figure public bond sweetener for

[A]

a company with less than $8,000 of

[B]

cash on hand and the ambition to build the largest mixed use project in Atlanta history.

[A]

Should we just end the pod there?

[B]

We report? You decide.

[A]

Welcome back to the Promote podcast, your insider guide to the money and mania of the CRE markets. I'm Hitsan Samtani.

[B]

And I'm Will Krasny.

[A]

A shout out to our sponsors, Bravo Capital, a leading HUD and bridge lender that lives and breeds capstacks and loanboss.

[B]

The best in class CRE debt management software.

[A]

I notice you're wearing a pretty snazzy hat.

[B]

Yes, this is new merch merch for the podcast. It is really high level. I don't even know what material this is. Is it mink? No.

[A]

Shout out to Capride Craig. He recommended us doing embroidery instead of printing. It feels a lot nicer.

[B]

Oh yeah, it feels just like R Mahogany. It's fantastic. It is going forward just for this segment and then it is immediately going backwards. So.

[A]

Oh yeah, look at that 1031. I love it. This week we have the this is too weird to be real tale of forge Atlanta, a $3.8 billion megaproject with the most bizarro development team and history that we've ever come across for a project of this scale.

[B]

Bizarro. Something's being forged.

[A]

Look, we know ground up is smoke and mirrors even on the best day, but this is next level. We then slip into linen trousers and head to the embattled sun kissed shores of hospitality giant Amman, where the involvement of a mysterious international fugitive has caused all sorts of drama. And finally, a quick wardrobe change into earnings call appropriate attire as CBRE absolutely crushes the AI Boom.

[B]

A monster docket. Let's start with the punch list, our signature rundown of the newsiest news in crew. This week's punch list is brought to you by Real Property Captive, the first group captive for mid market owners. I am going to be doing this because I am renewing a bunch of insurance in Q2 and it's really annoying. So I would love to have a

[A]

captive check out their [e-mail] to tap into the same insurance framework used by the market's biggest players. Okay, first one, your boy, Adam Newman. He's back.

[B]

You got to do what you love. Oh, tremendous.

[A]

You can't keep this guy down. You can't even bring him down. He's just unbelievable. Touched by God.

[B]

No shoes, no shirt, no problem. Investors bought 72 units at Flow House. Subleasing office space didn't work. So what about buying condos in bulk and renting them out? Maybe that'll work.

[A]

At the very same time that a lot of these multifamily buys, obviously peak zurb, floating rate, all that. As they were going down, there was rescue prep being needed for a bunch of these projects. Neumann at that same moment doubled the valuation of his company through. Through another round from as just untouchable.

[B]

I mean a 16Z. Who are the dumbest fucking people alive. Thank God they're not going to learn about any of this because Mark Andreessen doesn't look backwards, move forward, go. Honestly, I really picked this for the punch list because of the name of the debt broker. No shades to these guys, but could

[A]

you spell it out?

[B]

It is the number four. This is all one word at the beginning. The number four. Ever lending usa.

[A]

It's tremendous. Then I also like this other detail which the brokers, both the sales and the financing broker describe the deals as complicated.

[B]

That's Adam Newman for you.

[A]

We are burdened in setting an example. Next one. This one's got a special place in my heart.

[B]

Yeah, we hadn't talked about this.

[A]

Jared Solomon, a former dealmaker at Vornado Realty Trust, Big mighty office RE out of New York, was found guilty of all counts, convicted of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and bank fraud. This is in connection with a long running scheme to defraud Vornado over a decade plus.

[B]

Honestly, this was like kind of a good scheme.

[A]

Yeah, pretty good. Let's talk about what happened.

[B]

He reported up to Glenn Weiss, who's Vornado's longtime head of leasing.

[A]

Czar.

[B]

Yeah, the czar. And what he would do is set up fake brokerages on the other sides of his own deals.

[A]

Basically double ending the deal where Vornado is paying a company controlled by Solomon.

[B]

Yeah, and honestly, like I think you could have gotten away with it forever. He just got too greedy. Like he stole what, nine and a half million bucks?

[A]

Nine and a half million over 14 years. A lot of the activity was around digital signage, which obviously in New York City is a very important asset class. And 1540 Broadway was the Epicenter of this scam.

[B]

The subject of High Rise by Jerry Adler, which is one of my favorite real estate books of all time. And this billboard is hugely prominent. If you've been through Times Square, you absolutely know what it is.

[A]

Part of the bow tie. This is prime Main in Maine, basically.

[B]

Yeah. And it's one of these things where these signs are millions of dollars a year, and so the leasing commissions on these are massive. And so think about the guy was stealing $700,000 a year for 15 years and no one noticed.

[A]

Some really good reporting here from trd. Lg, the electronics giant, used a media buying company called Havas. Havas did not use a broker, but Vornado was billed by a company called Margo Media. Margot Media was controlled by Solomon.

[B]

Amazing. Yeah, Again, like, pretty good scheme.

[A]

Couple of great details there. When Vornado started getting suspicious about this, they said something is off here. Our boy used burner phones to try to throw them off the scent. God.

[B]

All right, top numbers for V ups. Second number's for muscle. If you need me, hit me on the third number. I do love, too, that he pushed to have some evidence excluded from the trial, arguing that his luxury home purchases could create a wealth based bias, which is amazing, just incredible.

[A]

The broader takeaway here is there's a pretty big gap between your in house dealmakers and then the brokers, the external brokers, who can make in a good year, many multiples of these guys. So one of the longstanding gripes that Salomon had, according to his boss, Glenn Weiss, is that he would always compare his comp, which was reasonable by the end of his tenure at Vornado, maybe close to $800,000 a year. But he was really upset that brokers were making a lot more than him. And this was sort of festering in his mind as he schemed and frauded his way through his work.

[B]

Yeah, because if you're one of these guys on the other side of his transaction, you've got however many deals that you're taking the piece of. It's just being an office tenant rep broker is like the best, you know, because you just go around, get wined and dined everywhere, and then you just send your invoice.

[A]

You said that being a land broker is the best gig in real estate.

[B]

No, no, no. I said that was like the dumbest people who would make the most money.

[A]

Fair. Next one, more Aum gobbling, happening some

[B]

jazz hands from Blue Owl, trying to get people to concentrate on something other than their redemptions in their credit. Vehicles. They're taking Silo Realty Trust, which candidly I'd never heard of.

[A]

Private healthcare, real estate company.

[B]

Yeah. For $2.4 billion, it's 19% premium. The share price, low 20s premium to 30 day. VWAP.

[A]

I love that. Say that again.

[B]

VWAP.

[A]

Sexy.

[B]

Yeah. It's 137 properties, a couple land parcels and it's 5.3 million square feet. But it's all mostly single tenant. So it's two of these things with really durable cash flow streams which we saw Starwood buy fundamental income. We saw Apollo buy into realty income. This is not dissimilar. That's a very credit fixed income like return profile here. And Blue Owl is keeping on, keeping on.

[A]

Is this just like a little bit of a smokescreen for the other problems or. I guess you got to keep going.

[B]

You keep going, move forward, go. The two founders don't have any more margin loans. They're out there loaded for bear.

[A]

Next one. Let's talk about a lesser cousin of Blue Owl here, King Street Capital Management, which has popped up. We talked about them a couple months ago in relation to the RXR vehicle, Gemini Office Ventures. King street is one of the anchor investors in that venture. They've been sporadic on the CRE landscape, but they've done fat deals. I think they did a half a billion dollar loan for Savannah, coincidentally with Blue Owl on 5, Bryant Park. And recently they were almost at the closing table in a Miami ground up deal and the developer was told, this is like a 50 million mez slug. The developer was told, we are pencils down, pencils down. We're not doing this. Days away from the closing table. They pulled out of it. Blackstone was supposed to do the senior TBD on where that cap stack now stands. We also learned that King street is restructuring the company. Basically.

[B]

Yeah. So they had real estate in a

[A]

separate slug, but they had a bunch of funds that they would make their bets through.

[B]

Right. And so now it's going to get lumped in with the rest of their credit vehicles. Three very senior guys there are leaving the co head of cre.

[A]

They are obviously part of the broader private credit ecosystem that is getting so much pressure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He said we're concentrating leadership and investing resources on the strategies where we have the deepest expertise and a clear edge. It really sounds to me like they're de emphasizing cre.

[B]

At the end of the day, they're selling money. Right. And so there's so much capital and private debt in commercial real estate right now. You Win by selling it cheaper, you sell it faster or you sell it with less covenants. And all three of those bring risks.

[A]

You got a feel for Mark Van Zant though? He's the other co ed of real estate. He sits in New York and he just did one of those splashy CEO profiles a few months ago. I wonder how that holds up now.

[B]

It's still on his wall. No problem.

[A]

That's it for the punch list. We'll be back in a minute with Hotlanta. Will, you've worn many hats in your glorious life so far. Pro baseball player, thespian, tornado remediation specialist. I want to ask which was your least favorite?

[B]

The first two. Ugh, they were dreams. The third was a nightmare. Turning into a dream though. However, if you asked me a few months ago, I would have said Excel Monkey was my least favorite. Modeling out the debt tab was really, really annoying. Maturity dates, extension options, rate caps. Ugh. My spreadsheets were beautiful. But at what cost?

[A]

Sounds like you had good roi. But your ROI BD return on invested brain damage not so good. So what changed?

[B]

I discovered Loan Boss. All my loans live on one screen. No more. Let me just pull that up while I jazz hands a capital partner. And the extension option tracking with automatic notice reminders. I used to have a post it note on my monitor for that. A post it note?

[A]

A 10 in this day and age?

[B]

Don't. I'm not proud of it. But the one click DSCR testing every lender adjustment, every unique requirement. Automated oh my God.

[A]

No more getting surprised by your own cap stack listeners. Check them [e-mail] that's loanboss.com and tell them the promote sent you. How do we begin this one?

[B]

Just starting by like listing some facts and then sort of seeing where we go. So Webstar Technology Group, which incredible name by the way.

[A]

Phenomenal.

[B]

Reminds me of a Homestar runner. You like techno at all the irrelevant questions to listen right now should be like what? Who?

[A]

Look, we have a lot of strivers in the audience and we're strivers. We're building media companies and other companies of our own. You typically start small and you work your way up, right? That's typically how you do it. Or you can just go balls out and say the first real project of consequence I'm going to do is going to be a multi billion dollar project.

[B]

On this podcast. We're not making judgments. This is all in good fun. We're not trying to be harsh on anyone. I want to be harsh on these guys. The fuck? This is all nonsense. Everything is nonsense. Everything we're about to say is nonsense. Let me just run this down real quick. So Web Star, which is a pink sheet traded company penny stock for, for those unfamiliar that reported no revenues in 2024 or 2025, they bought a major site in downtown Atlanta from Atlanta food magnate Russell McCall. And here I have to say that there's a man in full. Charlie Kroger owned Kroger Foods. Like so we're just like literally dealing with a plot of a man in

[A]

full composites of these guys. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So McCall sells them his headquarters and again, this is like absolutely insane. It's a total option. He sells it for $34.5 million with a $33.7 million seller note. And for those of us who aren't great at math, that's $800,000 that you have to get an option to go find the money to buy out the rest of this debt. And it's set to mature in three months. Totally normal. Like three months sale remotes for 95% of the purchase price. Totally normal.

[A]

It's like a loan sharky thing or is it?

[B]

I mean, it's not a loan sharky thing, it's just like a fugazi thing. My brain doesn't do option math, but it's like selling a call or selling a put on something.

[A]

Whereas, yeah, he gets to earn 800k in 3 months unless they miraculously pull this off. That the way to think about it?

[B]

Yeah, it is. And as we find out later, he's done this before. So the entity that bought it is a 9010 JV between Webstar Technology Group and Urban Tech or sometimes Urba Tech, depending on.

[A]

Sometimes they're 10k.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like mistakenly referred to it as Urban Tech. Sure.

[B]

Which is just unbelievable.

[A]

Urban Tech is a development company founded by cbre first vice president. As you guys know, in brokerage, titles mean nothing. He's an industrial broker and he started this development venture. He actually took the first shot at this site. When he defaulted, these guys stepped in and Russell McCall basically ran the playbook back.

[B]

Absolutely ludicrous stuff here, I guess.

[A]

I guess one big question I have is in the grand scheme of kind of scammy cities like Chicago has a reputation, for example. Do you have a sense of where Atlanta sits? Is it known for these kind of wildcatting schemes?

[B]

I was shocked this wasn't in Boca. It's just kind of crazy. This web star is one employee. It's got no revenue. What, $700 in their bank account.

[A]

You don't have enough faith in me because I actually pulled it at three different snapshots, right? Oh, my gosh.

[B]

Yeah, you're the best.

[A]

Cash on hand, end of September 2024. $154. Cash on hand, March 2025. $259. Cash on hand, end of September 2025. 7, 7, 8, 9. So they've done a little bit better, you could say.

[B]

I mean, this kind of reminds me of that Scrubs episode with Ryan Reynolds where Turk is like, hey, I've got like 500 bucks, you know, saved up. Like, where do you think I should put it? And he just goes, wallet, money clip.

[A]

There was an SEC filing by webstar. We have one full time employee and two contractors. We currently rely on our president and Chief Executive officer, Ricardo H. Haynes. Shout out to BizNow for some outstanding work on this over the last year or so. They actually spoke to the SEC's former chief accountant and said, like, listen, can you review this stuff for us? And I believe she said, unfortunately, it sounds like criminal activity.

[B]

Honestly, other thing, boys and girls out there is that if someone ever gives you their full name and they're not like the same name as someone else, like Michael B. Jordan, we can exclude him. I was introducing myself as William J. Krasny. Like, you should be really looking suspiciously at me.

[A]

We didn't even talk about the default. The most recent happening is that they defaulted on the last loan from McCall and they're now in the process of trying to extend this out.

[B]

They're trying to extend it through October 1st. It's like $1.9 million in extension fees and interest that he would earn over this period. And I just love McCall. He seems to think this is just fantastic.

[A]

He's a lark.

[B]

He's like, there's no need to think about foreclosure. There are hundreds of terms associated with this transaction. That reminds me, when I went to business school and I transferred in, the registrar said, you should take this class in poli sci because they, quote, have

[A]

a lot of books. Are you reading books again? What's wrong with reading books? Should we talk a little bit about the numbers here? When this project first was announced to the world, it was billed as a $1.2 billion project. Still a huge number, don't get me wrong. About a year later, it's being billed as a $3.8 billion project. Now, Will's not reacting as strongly here because he knows those numbers, right? But there was one more that I kept the expected profit is $4.5 billion. And quote a 1 21% internal rate of return over the next 20 years.

[B]

Okay, that doesn't make any sense. Because it's 4.5 billion on a $3.2 billion basis. Let's just walk through this. Right? It's all nonsense. But why not? We're here.

[A]

The important thing is to take unserious things very seriously.

[B]

100%. So we're talking $4.5 billion of profit on a billion dollars. Okay, that's a 4.5x over 20 years. That rule of 72. It's whatever. What's $1 billion at a $121 IRR for 20 years? What do we think? Opus? 4.7. $7.77 Quadrillion. That is 75x current global GDP.

[A]

Just phenomenal stuff. And look, obviously conventional banks are going to look at this and laugh Mr. Ricardo out of the room. So you kind of have to get creative about financing. And they've done the most Gen Z thing ever. They're going out to the crypto market and they're trying to issue crypto tokens not only on this project, but in another one in a town called Commerce, Georgia, where they were going to do these water parks. Did you hear about this one?

[B]

I saw it. Bear Village.

[A]

Bear Village.

[B]

Because when I want to put my little kids in the water, I want to think of bears.

[A]

So they were planning water parks, a retail complex, a hotel and a 15,000 gallon freshwater aquarium. The problem is no permits were filed. Utility companies weren't contacted to ask if they had the requisite water. And I think there was something like we don't have the water for it. Is what one utilities official told Biznow screams confidence. Let's get serious now for a second. Is the play just basically raise this crypto token, pass it on to someone else and Bob's your uncle.

[B]

Honestly, it seems like a pump and dump. It seems like something Jordan Belfort would be selling for. What was the name of his brokerage firm?

[A]

Stratton Oakmont.

[B]

Stability, integrity, pride. Honestly, what this seems like because none of it even remotely passes the sniff test.

[A]

What do we say about this auditing firm?

[B]

What is it? PricewaterhouseCoopers? No,

[A]

Olayinka Oyabole and company.

[B]

I haven't heard of them.

[A]

They're a Nigeria based company and the SEC had charged it in another case with aiding and abetting, quote, a massive securities fraud. We've certainly talked before about developments that seemed a little bit iffy. And one Sponsor seemed a little bit off or the cap stack didn't look quite right. And maybe a more experienced sponsor or a more blue chip financier coming in. That was not a borderline thing.

[B]

Yeah, this isn't Joseph, Ben and Otti or this isn't some sketchy Russian guys having money in 111 West 57th. There's not here. It's not even like that guy in Oklahoma City is at least like, has done stuff before.

[A]

God. Yeah.

[B]

You know, like that's not happening either. But, like, that's more real than this is.

[A]

So crypto investors who buy into these tokens, you could argue maybe that they deserve to lose their shirt on this if they're that stupid. Right.

[B]

They knew what they were getting into. I say let them crash.

[A]

The problem here is there is one very important real world implication, which is Fulton county is issuing bonds on this. They've approved 220 million-odd bond issuance on this project.

[B]

I cannot fucking believe that this happened.

[A]

That's taxpayer money, dude.

[B]

Yeah. And that's paid back from project revenue, of which there is going to be none.

[A]

Biznow reached out to them and they said something like, hey, if the developer doesn't fulfill their obligations, then we're not going to issue that money. Comforting.

[B]

I mean, yeah, of course. So I'm glad that the good people of Fulton county aren't going to have to wear this. But I will say, really important is that when you're going to make $4.5 billion of profit in this type of development like this TIFF is hugely accretive. It's 9.7 million of tax savings.

[A]

This is a company that there has been, quote, substantial doubt about its ability to carry on as a going concern. By the time this POD comes out, Webstar may no longer be around. That is a potential thing here.

[B]

Friends of the pod, let's all put in and take this thing over. How expensive can a hostile takeover of this be?

[A]

Yeah. In McCall's words, we still have a few hills to climb. But all being agreed to at this time.

[B]

The hills are being agreed to. What are we talking about?

[A]

I'm here with Aaron Crowitz of Bravo Capital. Aaron, $2 billion in deals. 100% HUD approval rate. Five years since launching. How do you keep that streak going?

[C]

Comes down to our team. Our underwriters know what HUD wants to. We're a pure play HUD lender. Meaning everything we do is hud and bridge to hud. No taking shots and just hoping when we go, we really go.

[A]

You closed a healthcare HUD Express Lane deal in four days. Four days?

[C]

Four days from our submission to HUD's approval. And it goes back to knowing the ins and outs of the program so

[A]

that there is no guesswork sniffs assisted living. It feels like such an arcane world full of very complicated regulations and such a specific cast of characters that you really need to know Cole, to make this work.

[C]

Exactly. We're steeped in state by state regulations and distinctions. But we're not just about hud. We also have a very strong balance sheet Bridge affiliate Bravo Property Trust and we just financed over 170 million out in Miami and 125 million in Dumbo, Brooklyn. If we have conviction, we move fast.

[A]

Thanks Aaron. And where can people find you?

[C]

We'[e-mail].

[A]

We've talked a lot on the show about one Beverly Hills. It's a very confounding cap stack to us. Now being billed as a $10 billion project. Got the largest non data center construction loan in history. It did recently from JP Morgan. 4 billion and change. Right. Massive numbers here. The developer on that is Caine International. The hospitality developer are our old friends Vlad Deronen and Amon Group. The Amon junkies. People will know the chain of ultra ultra frou frou resorts in remote corners of the five star universe. And Will's favorite hotel in Manhattan.

[B]

Yeah, back in the early days of the pod, one of the things that helped us get some purchase was my rant about hating the Iman in New York.

[A]

Yes, but now Doronan's company finds himself under a bit of heat and here's what's happening. Whale Hunting, which is an investigative publication. It was founded by these two crack Wall Street Journal reporters, Brad Hope and Tom Wright. Yeah, they put out a book, very excellent book called Billion Dollar Whale about Joe Low and the one MDB scandal and incredible web of fantastic book. Yeah, incredible book. We'll put in the show notes, but it's about this global money laundering web with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, that sovereign wealth fund, a bunch of Emirati sovereign wealth money and a bunch of Goldman guys. Correct. It was a major scandal globally. People went down in the UAE for it. Like serious people were put in prison.

[B]

The guy Goldman, the British guy served time.

[A]

Correct. This all came back to some very high end properties in New York, as everything always does, including the Park Lane Hotel and Witkoff and that whole thing. Anyway, whale hunting is their new project and a couple weeks ago had a bombshell report. So what do we know about Benjamin

[B]

Maurenberger, he was a money launderer, alleged money launderer extraordinaire, and laundered billions of dollars.

[A]

I mean, there's a red notice out for his arrest.

[B]

Yeah, that's serious. He laundered billions of dollars that were again, allegedly generated through criminal activities.

[A]

Pretty sordid stuff.

[B]

Using cryptocurrency.

[A]

Let's talk a little about pig butchering.

[B]

Oh man. They'd catfish American teens and get them to send pictures of themselves in compromising positions and then blackmail them. There's been several stories about those teens killing themselves after this. Just absolutely horrifying. Like the most vile, awful things you can think of. And these scams, a lot of them originate in Southeast Asia. And the people who are doing this are in a lot of cases, victims too. They have to work 17 hour days under threat of torture and rape by the Chinese mafia. It's just awful, awful all around.

[A]

Right. Maureberger allegedly is the money laundering guy for some operations like this. And so he's got a lot of money. He lives or lived in Dubai, as one does when one is at the center of this. He lived on his yacht for a while.

[B]

What is name? Daniel Kinahan. Just get arrested in Dubai too?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So it's always been almost like international waters. Almost like what Tangiers used to be back in the day.

[B]

I was going to say, it's like the Continental is. And John Wick, it is a pleasure having you with us again.

[A]

Exactly. So why are we talking about Marburger? At some point Mauburger got the hots for Vlad Deronin.

[B]

Yeah. He did this in an interesting way where if you're incredibly liquid, one of the best ways to launder money is through real estate. Because once the money, real estate doesn't have if you do it with the right sponsor or wrong sponsor.

[A]

Not a ton of kyc.

[B]

Yeah, not a ton of KYC going in. And then once you sell it, then that profit has a real. It's a profit or loss. In many cases you want, a loss is generated through a real business activity and it's clean. And so it's hard to put a lot of this out. And one of the best places to do it is in luxury high end real estate because people aren't going to ask a lot of questions. In a lot of cases, if someone's

[A]

coming to you with $25 million and wants to be a quiet LP, you generally will not say too much.

[B]

Exactly. What Malberger did though is he purchased two entire floors of an Amman Condominium in Bangkok.

[A]

The kind of deal that puts you on the radar of the principal pretty quickly.

[B]

Yeah, it's almost in everyone's best interest to not ask a ton of questions and sort of assume that you're just

[A]

very liquid from whatever Marburger buys into this Amman Bangkok. Then he buys a $21 million condo at the Amman New York, the one bedroom, pretty straightforward. You don't really call that person a partner, they're just the buyer. And the level of things you need to worry about as a developer is minimal in that case. At some point though, he reportedly traveled to Phuket with Doronen to scout a site for Amman's sister brand. It's called Janu. The Phakat thing never really came to fruition, but by the time Dubai was chosen for a Janu hotel, Maureberger reportedly found his way into the capstack through some shell company that he used and he invested into the Janu Dubai project.

[B]

So that's where this goes from a plausible deniability. Everyone's sort of off on their own to a you've got a real problem because Amman is backed by serious fucking people who do have kyc and they

[A]

have KYC and they have a lot to think about and they're as institutional as it gets. So let's talk about a couple of them. Pif, which is the Saudi sovereign wealth fund controlled by Mohammed bin Salman, like real money here for now. And Cain International, which is Jonathan Goldstein's company, which is also Todd Bailey's company,

[B]

private equity, private credit billionaires.

[A]

They've been running amok on the skylines in the US developing some really high

[B]

end projects, massive stuff in Boston, one Beverly Hills as we mentioned. But what I would say here too is that these are not guys who just take anybody's dough. These are like about as sophisticated, about as high end as you can find in the US financial system.

[A]

So Cain was the MEZ on the Iman New York and had put in about 450 million in the MEZ there initially in the Iman New York in project level investment. At some point though, Cayden PIF invested $900 million into Amman parent company at a $3 billion valuation, where essentially they are now Doronin's very important partners.

[B]

And generally speaking, if you are very important partners, you do not want alleged money launderers who are adjacent to some of the most vile things in the entire world in your project with you.

[A]

So when this report came out in whale hunting, apparently questions are being asked in the boardrooms of Amon by both Kane and pif. How could this happen? How did Mauerburger's money enter into Amman? Projects that are obviously connected to us carry a huge amount of headline risk and many other consequences there.

[B]

One of these things about Amman and this type of brand is that none of it makes sense. Right, but that's the point. Spending at the Amman in New York, in the little bar underneath, when you have a drink for like $29, what you're not buying is the drink, you're buying this.

[A]

The experience. Yeah.

[B]

Refuge from everywhere else. The brand is everything. If the brain gets tainted, like all of this goes away because everything kind of works as long as no one thinks about it too much. And if you're saying like, oh yeah, I'm on. Is that the one that was associated with the guy who. Not where you want to be. So it's real questions. And again, like $900 million, I mean BOLI Cain, they write big checks but like they're going to notice that like that goes sideways. That's a big deal. More importantly, it's a hugely visible investment for them. They have huge checks into net lease companies you've never heard of or productions or whatever.

[A]

Yeah, but part of the reason they put money into these things is also their own brand building. And we talk a lot on this pod about narrative setting and how you can control the narrative. The question here becomes what do you do when the narrative goes off the rails a little bit like it is here? It's going to be a very challenging few weeks for Doron and in Aman, I think.

[B]

Absolutely. At the very least the money goes back. At the very least. And even that's not enough.

[A]

In all likelihood, if the money goes back, then you're copping to the money being there in the first place.

[B]

That's a fair point. I'm just thinking of how Ari Emanuel returned the Saudis money after Jamal Khashoggi.

[A]

Didn't he just take it back though, after he did? Yeah, a little bit.

[B]

When you are making these types of bets for these types of brands with global reach, it's going to attract a lot of interest. But it's also going to attract a lot of interest in people who want to use your brand as a halo. And that is something you got to be very, very, very aware of and protect against. Because one unfortunate wire transfer can unravel the whole kit and caboodle. So on a happier note, we're ending the pod by talking about CBRE really crushing their earnings, but not their Stock. Yeah, the market didn't seem to love this. So we talked maybe two months ago about how all the brokerages got absolutely nuked or the stock prices, we should

[A]

say, over AI fears. Correct.

[B]

Got killed over AI fears. And I think CBRE was down, ended up being 10% or something. JLL and Cushman similarly. And the market prices aren't reflecting the actual underlying fundamentals of the businesses. CBRE had a massive quarter.

[A]

Their profit jumped, what, 95%?

[B]

Yeah. They doubled their net income. But the bigger thing too is they raised their earnings. You always want to beat and raise, right? Beat on earnings and then raise your guidance. They raise their guidance 20%, which is. Is really big. We thought that the brokerages had gotten crushed with AI, but turns out it's the earnings that are doing the crushing.

[A]

This is the thing, right. Whichever way the data center game goes, it could be the greatest boon to real estate of all time. It could be the thing that brings the entire system down. But in the interim, there is so much transaction activity happening. Right? There is purchases, there is financing, there is leasing, and then there is facilities management. When we think of cbre, investment sales brokerage is such a little bit of drop in the bucket. And they are the world's biggest services firm and they are so good at jumping on the zeitgeist and they are crushing it in the most zeitgeisty part of CRE at the moment, data centers.

[B]

Well, what's so funny to me is that everyone's like, oh, in AI, it's going to be like the gold rush, where you wanted to not necessarily be mining for gold. You wanted to be selling picks and shovels. These guys are selling picks and shovels and they have contracts for those picks and shovels. Bob Silentik said it himself.

[A]

Doesn't he look a little like Kristoff from the Truman show to you?

[B]

A little bit, yeah. I have been watching you your whole life. But he said infrastructure and services were really strong in Q1. They've been strong in the early parts of Q2. And yeah, they're raising their EPS expectations by 20%, which is crazy. And again, the stock's down 6% on this.

[A]

What is behind the disconnect between the way that these companies are actually performing and the way that they're being perceived in the market vibes?

[B]

The market can be overwhelmed in the short term one way or the other by sentiment. I think that's what's happening here. These guys are going to be involved in data centers. If AI ends up working to your point, these guys are going to get paid left, right and center. And if it doesn't work, they're going to have other parts of their businesses which are very lucrative that aren't impacted by this at all.

[A]

And they'll be in charge of the unwinding of the data centers, which will be a lot.

[B]

Yeah, they got to go sell them all again. They get paid twice. Let's talk a little bit more about this Meta plan.

[A]

Sure. What's going on?

[B]

They're going to train thousands of fiber technicians to build out this data center infrastructure because it's very specific. So it's not like you can just pull in like a random person off the street to go do this. And they're going to do this for Meta. Meta's got 30 data centers in operation, under construction and they have more projects

[A]

and planning stages just to put a number on it. Each data center project is like a multibillion dollar undertaking, right?

[B]

Exactly. And so it's all of these things. Like these services are great businesses. There's no capex to training people like

[A]

this when AI is sort of broke through. The people who got paid first and fast were the accentures and the McKinsey's of the world. Right. They're the ones who went and trained the workforces on AI adoption and they were putting out these decks and reports.

[B]

That's what they're doing right now. It's still happening. This is going to be a multi year thing.

[A]

And CBRE and their ilk are basically doing the real estate version of that. Right. They had to get up to speed very quickly and they just captured so much market share. And what I always think about with these things is the shifting dynamics within the firms. If data centers went from being, call it 3% of your business to your primary profit driver, what does that look like on the back end for comp? What does that look like for the status games that we talk about a lot in brokerage as well?

[B]

That's true. But I think too the services aspect of this, you don't want to shift those out. Like property management's really sticky. This isn't property management, but like facilities maintenance services and all that. One, you can only hire like three shops. Meta is not going to hire me and like five guys to go do this and like build this company.

[A]

It's got to be incredibly institutional. You need to hire the CBRE's and the JLLs. And going to Marcus on this would be a little bit tricky, right?

[B]

Yeah, probably not. JLL and Cushman are reporting later this month or early next, so we'll see how those two go. But this is a great start for the big brokerages for earnings. So good for Bob. Big shot Bob.

[A]

That's it for the promote podcast this week. A megaproject in Hotlanta is showing signs of becoming a mega incinerator of investor capital and taxpayer funds. A fugitive known for money laundering, for pig butchering scams. What a collection of words.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

Has found his way into the cap stack for Amman deals, which isn't being received too well by the folks at Cain and pif. And whether data centers become the next great real estate asset class or bring the whole private credit party to a screeching halt is tbd. But Bob Silantik and his merry band of brokers at CBRE are too big busy making it rain to care.

[B]

Thank you again to our sponsors, Bravo

[A]

Capital, who you can [e-mail] loan boss you can [e-mail] and real property [e-mail]

[B]

and while you're at it, write us a review on Apple, Spotify, some of those other services that I can't remember, but they exist. I know people listen to podcasts on them.

[A]

And stay tuned for the swag store, which is only days away. Guys.

[B]

Yes. Buy some swag. It looks great. I don't know how many people are watching this on YouTube, but like, like, yeah, here we go.

[A]

That's a one of one though. That's the black tea that is not being put out. That's just for you.

[B]

Very kind of you to do it since I only wear black tees.

[A]

Co host Perks. All right, dude, I'll see you next week. Thank you.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Ciao.