The family office said it sees long-term trends adding to a "unique period" of market disruption, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The family office of high-profile hedge fund manager Steve Cohen is pushing into the real estate space, partly to capitalize on disruption to property assets from the pandemic. 

Cohen Private Ventures has hired Todd B Kristol as a partner and head of real estate. Kristol will be responsible for building and leading a new real estate investment team for CPV, the family office said in a statement yesterday.

“The team will initially focus on the office, industrial, multifamily, and retail property sectors, but will have the flexibility to explore opportunities in other asset classes. The group will target transactions where CPV is the control investor, partnering with best-in-class operators to apply their expertise and help create value,” the family office said. 

“Real estate is a natural extension of our existing portfolio and investment strategies, and Todd has the deep experience and expertise to help us capitalize on the potential in the space,” Andrew B Cohen, co-founder and chief investment officer of CPV, said. “There is tremendous opportunity in the real estate investing sector right now. We are seeing a number of promising long-term trends coupled with a unique period of disruption that has been and continues to be accelerated by the pandemic.”

Before joining CPV, Kristol was head of real estate at Marron Capital, a family office, where he directed the firm’s real estate investment strategy. He previously founded and was managing partner of the Kairos Group, a private real estate investment management company targeting distressed and under-performing commercial, residential, and special purpose assets. From 2009 to 2013, Kristol was a principal at Westbrook Partners, and he also served as a vice president at Cerberus Real Estate Capital Management from 2002 to 2009.

Cohen’s investment business is called Point72 Asset Management.

The Wall Street veteran is no stranger to the limelight. In November 2020 Cohen completed his $2.4 billion purchase of the New York Mets baseball team, becoming its CEO. In 2014 Cohen changed his US-based SAC Capital Advisors firm to a family office structure, calling it Point72 Asset Management, later returning to managing external client money in 2018. (In 2013, the SAC business agreed to pay $1.8 billion and pleaded guilty to securities fraud to settle insider dealing charges. As part of the settlement, Cohen, who was not charged with any offense, agreed to close SAC and return client money.)

Cohen's push into real estate is part of a broader theme of family offices – classic exemplars of “patient capital” – holding assets that they consider have a long-term investment payoff. A few days ago Family Wealth Report wrote about a family office buying into the South Carolina hotels industry.