Tom Intrator: Who is the mystery man?
A quiet New Yorker with a habit of abruptly speaking his mind, Tom Intrator has launched the largest development project in his young career in Memphis.
Rebuilding Memphis’ barren Pinch
District for $1.1 billion would rank among the city’s largest real estate deals ever. It would accomplish a goal Memphis leaders fell short on three decades ago — revive a forlorn Downtown area beside the Pyramid that dates to the city’s 1819 origins. While his proposed skyscrapers would be iconic, for many in Memphis, he’s still a question mark.
Everyone in local real estate circles knows his name. It is pronounced INTRAY-TOR. None can say where he’ll get money for his Pinch deal. Some wonder if he has the know-how for the complex task — erect high-rise buildings on urban land serviced by old and in places decrepit water, sewer and electrical
Mark Russell is the executive editor of The Commercial Appeal. A 34-year industry veteran, Russell has worked at The CA for five years and previously worked as an editor and reporter in Orlando, Florida, Cleveland, Ohio, and Pittsburgh. He lives in Collierville. Contact him at mark.russell@commercialappeal.com or follow him on Twitter, @Markrussell44. lines, and then rent out the new towers to retail, residential and office tenants.
Intrator’s company, 18 Main LLC, has asked for $188.8 million worth of local and state tax breaks. But the developer has never taken pains to tell the public why they should support a deal destined to boost his own wealth.
“If you’re going to develop property in Memphis, people have to know who you are,” real estate developer John Elkington said. “People want to have faith you can do what you say you can do.”
Who is Tom Intrator?
Developers often let their egos sing of their successes, but Intrator is a mystery here. He prefers quiet. He never responded to interview requests. Dozens of public records and reports shaped this profile. What stands out?
❚ Intrator lives in a Manhattan apartment. Public records place its value at $13 million.
❚ Memphis apartment buildings Intrator’s firm managed were financed by a website in Israel that crowd-sources money for real estate deals.
❚ His partner tapped a financier in America regarded in some circles as a slumlord.
EAST MEMPHIS AND MIDTOWN MEMPHIS:
On the questions of whether Intrator will tap those sources, or who he is and how he got to this point in life, even his parents stayed quiet.
“He’s guarded. About what he wants,” said Orna Intrator, a geriatric specialist formerly on the faculty at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. His father, Nathan Intrator, a New York resident and currently a medical device entrepreneur on the faculty at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, was equally curt.
Shortly after the father hung up, Tom Intrator’s public relations agent in Memphis reached out. “Contacting his parents is a bit out of bounds and personal. Let me know how I can help you and I’ll do my best,’’ says an email from the public relations firm’s Doug Carpenter.
Carpenter agreed in early February to try to set up an interview with the developer. Intrator never consented. Last Wednesday, Carpenter was informed The Commercial Appeal would publish this profile soon and welcomed Intrator’s input by Friday. Intrator never replied.
Though he may be shy, Intrator has spoken out. Once he complained about Memphis restaurant food. A reporter’s story mentioned the complaint. The words grated on Taylor Berger, a Memphis restaurant entrepreneur who explained his concern about tunnel-vision outsiders in a letter to an online news site, the Daily Memphian.
“After the article ran, some people spoke to me,” Berger remembered. “Everybody kind of wishes I was wrong. I wish I was wrong. Maybe we’re a small town. Maybe we should be more trusting of people with big ideas.”
How it began
He may be a mystery for many in Memphis, though Intrator has a story. It begins with a New York entrepreneur named Yariv Bensira.
“Tom is one of my best friends. He is unbelievably smart,” Bensira said when reached at an Indianapolis phone number.
Not long ago, they were business partners. How they met isn’t clear. Bensira quickly ended the conversation. He said he’d talk about Intrator only with his permission.
Bensira’s Facebook page refers to his own education at City University of New York’s Baruch College. Intrator apparently attended an American-style high school in Israel. Both found real estate careers.
Remember the 2008 Wall Street crash, all the home foreclosures? Millions of families were forced into rentals. The rental market boomed nationwide. Entrepreneurs jumped in. One was Bensira.
He bought houses and apartment buildings, rented them out. Public records filed in Delaware, Florida, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Texas associate Bensira with more than a dozen small companies, including Hyde Capital. It is based in Memphis and is not related to local philanthropist Pitt Hyde.
Bensira’s Hyde Capital owns Lennox Companies. Lennox managed Hyde Capital properties. Intrator headed Lennox. It is not clear how Bensira afforded multiple buildings, although one source came to light. An investment fund in Israel named Hagshama Ltd. on its website lists clients including Hyde Capital of Memphis.
Israeli fund crowd-sources cash
Hagshama is considered Israeli’s first investment fund to rely on crowdsourcing for its money. Tel Aviv entrepreneur Avi Katz, founder of Israel’s first dollar store chain, set it up in 2009.
Hagshama’s website boasts it hands middle-class Israelis a legitimate way to invest in the “big leagues.” The message echoes the 2008 collapse of global finances. Wealthy people worldwide looked for safe places for their money. Many avidly bought buildings in the United States.
Israel, a nation on the Mediterranean Sea with fewer residents than Tennessee and Mississippi combined, by 2014 was the third-largest source of foreign investment capital flowing into U.S. property. Hagshama, a Hebrew term meaning fulfillment, pooled crowdsourced cash and chose real estate deals to invest in. The firm says 28,000 individual investors chipped in a minimum of $10,000.
To help raise money, Bensira cultivated an image as a real estate guru. He brought in New York public relations agency Heraldpr in early 2016. Its publicity statement described Bensira as “a leading expert and thought-leader in the world or (sic) real estate, real estate investing, development and homebuilding.”
Several publications soon quoted him. A story in U.S. News & World Report said Bensira “came to the country to attend college and now ... owns and handles 4,000 units with a private investment
Lennox started to tap US investors
The publicity campaign appears linked in part to a money-raising strategy in the United States.
In December 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission received a Form D securities filing from Lennox Income & Opportunity Fund I LLC. The new firm sought to raise $30 million to $60 million. The Form D statement listed Bensira, Intrator, Lennox Properties and Jonathan Wogan, a Lennox executive, as principals.
Also listed was a sales agent — International Assets Advisory LLC of Orlando, Florida. Known in the wealth industry for controversial broker-dealers, IAA’S role was to market Lennox Income & Opportunity Fund to individual investors.
In 2017, Columbia University law school researchers and Reuters news service determined 48% of IAA’S 140 brokers had been flagged for miscues over the years by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Among those flagged was broker James Bashaw, a high-profile Texan.
LPL Financial suspended Bashaw in 2014 for allegedly borrowing clients’ money. He then interviewed with Wunderlich Securities of Memphis but landed instead at the Orlando firm. A report on Bashaw and IAA by the publication Business Insider was headlined: “Meet the wealth firm that proudly hires brokers with checkered pasts.”
What happened to the Lennox Income & Opportunity Fund isn’t clear. No related SEC filings came to light. The fund apparently sold no securities through IAA or other brokers. In the brief interview, Bensira declined to comment.
“I’m not part of Tom’s venture in Memphis,” Bensira said.
Buying in Memphis
When they were partners, Hyde Capital acquired apartment buildings. Memphis holdings funded by Hagsha
ma included Blair Towers, Kimbrough Towers and Rosecrest apartments. Hagshama reported Hyde Capital bought, renovated and resold the buildings. But in two cases, stinging comments appeared on social media.
“The nightmare started when the building owner sold the complex to some guy in New York and let Lennox companies manage them in Feb 2016,” says a posting by an apparent Blair resident, citing renovation, parking and basement water problems. Lennox responded in early 2018 with its own post saying improvements were made.
In April 2019, Memphis television station WMC Action News 5 reported Robert Knecht, head of Memphis Public Works, had said Rosecrest was cited for repeated non-working elevators.
Meanwhile, Bensira was busy in Indianapolis. His firms amassed real estate there. Some homes were cited by the Indianapolis Housing Authority, which oversees the city’s federal Section 8 low-income housing program. The agency charged Bensira’s YSE LLC with fraud on a Section 8 home.
Indianapolis Housing also cited Bethel Apartments LLC for Section 8 violations. The agency traced Bethel to “Bensira representing Verdot Capital Group of Tel-aviv, Israel,” says an account in the city’s daily newspaper, The Indianapolis Star.
Verdot’s name appears in public records in the United States. M.P. Properties, a controversial New York investor, is listed on a Uniform Commercial Code statement as a creditor on transactions with Verdot FL Ventures LLC and 1755 Miami LLC. The latter’s address is shown as 5384 Poplar Ave. in Memphis. Lennox Companies and Hyde Capital share the same address. Bensira is listed as Verdot FL’S registered agent.
M.P. traces to real estate investor Moshe Piller. In 2004, the New York Daily News said Piller was New York’s largest slumlord. He did not return a call seeking comment about the business with 1755 Miami.
Intrator focuses on Pinch District
Recently, Intrator formed 18 Main LLC, a New York firm handling the Pinch proposal and other Downtown Memphis projects chiefly on Main Street.
Members of the firm include Shay Yadin, a Los Angeles real estate consultant active earlier, separately from 18 Main, on the high-profile renovation of L.A.’S Broadway Trade Center.
Details about 18 Main are sparse on its website other than for stories by Memphis publications. Most cite Intrator’s real estate purchases and personal vision for his Downtown properties.
Just where Intrator will secure money for the $1.1 billion Pinch project is unclear. 18 Main outlined its proposal in a filing with the Downtown Memphis Commission. The firm would contribute about $85 million for the $604.3 million first phase. The remainder would be borrowed. Property and sales taxes raised by the new Pinch buildings would flow to a special trust fund still to be set up. The trust fund would help repay the borrowed money over 30 years.
18 Main has turned to a Chicago lender. Uniform Commercial Code statements list Pangea Capital Mortgage LLC as a creditor on undisclosed transactions in Memphis with 18 Main. Pangea traces to payday loan tycoon Albert Goldstein, founder of Cash Net USA and online lender Avant Credit.
Goldstein, 38, built Pangea into a leading owner of Chicago apartment buildings. Chicago newspaper articles credit Goldstein for reviving old housing in poor areas, but one sour note has cropped up.
In 2018, Pangea filed 1,137 eviction cases in Chicago courts, the newspaper Chicago Reader reported, saying Pangea “has taken as many people to court as the next four landlords combined.”
Right now, the investors and bankers who will bankroll the Pinch District’s renaissance have not been identified.
So what’s next?
Jennifer Oswalt said the investors will be revealed later.
She heads the Downtown Memphis Commission. 18 Main asked the agency to approve a $122.5 million property tax cut. State officials were asked to approve, and are still studying, the proposed diversion of $66.3 million in future sales taxes. That $188.8 million total would flow to the proposed trust fund earmarked for repaying construction loans.
“He’ll close in on the incentives after he has his financing in place,” she said. And the financing will come after he has a better understanding of the costs.
He also foresees the hurdles. First, architects must design the buildings. Then contractors can bid on construction. That will give insight into the total cost, including the cost of replacing aged utilities. Knowing the total cost, he can reach out to investors and bring in a developer to oversee construction, she said.
“He has told me he’ll have a partner on the development side who is very experienced,” Oswalt said. “He has done the really hard part, which is accumulating the land. That is the very difficult thing.’’
Paperwork will consume the next 18 months. Then construction will start. Completion is expected in 2024.
Though quiet in public, the young developer shared information with the Downtown commission. Oswalt said Intrator has said his ownership stake in several thousand apartments throughout the nation was sold recently for about $150 million.
Going from apartment management to real estate development marks a career shift, so it is not unusual he has no record in development circles, she said.
“Everybody has their first different project, the big project where they venture out to do something else,” Oswalt said.