INVESTFEST 8.7.22 PEEBLES, CRAIG AND MG

 10:52am start, before there music break

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH R. Donahue Peebles, Craig Livingston hosted by MG the Mortgage Guy

COUCH: MG, Donahue Peebles and Craig 

MG: MR. DONAHUE PEEBLES, PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF:

FOUNDER OF PEOPLE'S CORPORATION STARTED IN WASHINGTON DC. RUN BY BLACK MAUOR AND BLACK GOVT. FIRST BUILDING IN 1986, HISTORICALLY BLACK COMMUNITY. 

1985 went to South beach for opening of hotel, got an apartment down there. read newspaper article read about opportunity to develop a hotel called Royal Palm. we are going to bid and win and change trajectory of our company. 2 weeks later, won the rights to build. developed by black developers. built the company to what it is today. 8 billion of development in our pipeline. finishing up a project in Tribeca. Brooklyn village for 12 billion. doing many things in Miami. partner of mine, building third tallest building for 2 trillion dollars (?)

philosophy called affirmative development. African American we started so far behind, we gotta go out and identify 35% of every dollar we spend goes to black business. 

that's why I stopped cooperating before, I stand for more than just money. transformative breaking barriers.

MG: I'm from NY. First question, how did you find land to build in Manhattan?

Cheryl McKissack, a friend owned oldest black owned construction company in the US. she's not able to be here due to health reasons.

I found out first black... showcase of black economic excellence. Cheryl's firm be General Contractor. So when we named it, named it 'Affirmation Tower'.. design team I asked what's the tallest building in NY? it was 1 world trade. well we're gonna do something. Let's build the tallest building in not just NY but the Western Hemisphere. And that's how we got started. 

MG: what are the challenges taht come with building something that big?

publically owned site, owned by NY State. they propose to business people 

we responded, we provided proposal. one of the best that was reviewed. they made a comment on the financial acumen of this team. money was not gonna be an issue in getting this building built.

MG: how do you even get on this list to be part of something public like this?

the way the system has been set up. commercial Re is not diverse, it's not inclusive. Generational, wealth, real estate is passed down generation to generation. we have been denied economic opportunity and capital as well. It's not always fairly allocated. but the information is out there. 

When we see another black business man we don't see him as competition, we see 

3.6 Billion dollars is what we came up with. govt agency they said they had no doubt we had the financial wherewithal to do this building. to do well, to make a lot of money, you have to be an outlier to begin with. every RSP I've been involved with, have been rigged against me. You gotta figure out how to play the game and unrig it.  

Don't let that discourage you because they wont see you coming.

register every city, every state they all have economic development arms. go online and request RSP for any property that they have. 

our company, our team has people that look at the response. its much easier now. they'll send you detailed information about a new solicitation. DON'T BE AFRAID TO TAKE A BIG BITE, A BIG SHOT. 

MG: how did you come up with 3.6 billion dollars?

this is the most unknown part of RE. 

1) borrow 65 to 70% from a bank. so now your need is 30 million. you can get from private equity, Blackrock,. they will put up 90% of the equity for you.

you need 3 million to 

NY developers do this. GP capital, general partners, that's what Craig and I do. 

90% is institutional investor

some take GP capital, raise 90% of that. developer can build a building for 100 mil with .... also paid developer fee of the project.. Can do deal with no money out of pocket and get paid almost 4 million dollars to build it. 

Equity requirement is about a billion 2.. that leaves 120 million dollars for us to come up with. 

We can also level up again and put up 12 mil to build 12.6 billion dollar project. THE NAME OF THIS BUSINESS IS LEVERAGE. 

MG: how do you get people to believe in Affirmation Tower

Craig: great capital partners, limited partners to put up a big chunk of that capital. management team, the ____ team... work with one of the best architects. there is a reason.. our track record has proven us out again and again

In 2012, first skyscraper to build by Black people. i'm sure we have worked on one but not developed and ____. when black people walk into the room, there is always a question about whether we would perform. 

Time and time again the same opportunity goes to the same people. 

Affirmation Tower is part of hudson yards. given to a white developer. we're having to do a lot of work to reissue the IP and be able to build it. we are determined to build this building and it will be built. 

low educational barriers, our RE business.

I quit collega after my first. 15 years ago was selling wigs by a male, orthodox jewish building. sold that company. started invest in RE, went from there to developing skyscrapers.

one of the most successful developers started as a taxi cab dispatchers. 

COMMON: THEY DID NOT SEE LIMITATIONS ON THEMSELVES.

we have to approach business with the mindset THAT THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS ANYMORE.

thought of where this money comes from. talked about private equity. equity is provided by ___ firms. then private equity that invest in real estate and other types of business.

84 trillion dollars.. Biden allocated 2 trillion to save the country economically. 

About 1% is invested in firms started or run by people of color or women combined. 

Black people at 13 percent of the population. women are (?) of the population.

public employee pension systems, retirement for govt workers, school teachers, doctors, they have these pensions systems they pay into it. we don't get fair access to our own capital. almost 60 percent are people of color. they can't do more than 5%.. we don't get access to our own money.. our own money is funding these developers to gentrify our own communities. we have to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. 

CRAIG: RE is a capital intensive business. public pension funds, our own money we cant get access to. think of how hypocritical that is.

ww2, issued blank check to rebuild Europe. spent black check to rebuild Japan. spend trillinos in Iraq and Afghanistan. but we can't figure out how to solve economic empowerment for black peopel (he said a number). 

MG: HOW DO WE FIX THAT?

CRAIG: we vote, we put people in office they give a great speech. poverty maintenance. if we spent half of what we spend on poverty maitenance in investing, it would be different. 

if tehy not talking about money, capital for your busienss you gotta remix your converstaion. no more feel good speeches and nothing changes. we all have a role in this, ya'll. 

PEEBE: how many people own or want to own a business?

how many have enough money to start and fund your business? 

most of the hands went down. if this was a different room, everyone hand would be up because thehy would have enough money

mayors, .. (named different people) they hold the money. 

fair system we will take care of ourselves. right? WE JUST NEED THE GAME TO BE PLAYED FAIRLY. joe biden would be in waterfront in delware as former VP. this man will spending 100 of billions to help Ukraine. the fed employee system has 17000 asset managers only black one. and you know who put him in place? Trump.

MG: project was approved, new governor of NY came and put a halt to it. why is governor giving you a hard time?

CRAIG: Good point. who puts mayor in office, the consistuency that makes that happen is the black voter. why is black voter putting her in office? RP to be reissued. we only have the best concept and we are looking foward to winning. 

RE DEVELOPMENT have been an old white club. owned assets passed them down to grandfather to grandson and again.

went to a meeting on 42nd st. talking business family owned company. get in elevator. they lease out the whole building to fortune 500 bank. midtown manhattan. you can see the whole harbor and statue of liberty and connecticut and NJ. go to conference room. waiting on family to come in.

oicture on the wall. little old immigrant lookiing man. suitcase and woman, has to be 100 years old. family comes in, this is out great grandfaterh bought this land in 1914. it was the hood, black neighborhood. we didnt have resources to capital to buy land in our own hood.

almost 100 years later they are able to monitize it as a family. they were able to hold that asset. the value of that land has skyrocketed since it was purchased. that land is gonna trade 5 equity firms 100s of millions of dollars. they continue to monitize it. 

we have not been at the table. 400 year deficit. 

fair access to capital, fair access to opportunity. 

PEBBE: these politicians need to earn our support.

MG: MINORITY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES. WHAT IS IS AND THIS PROJECT WILL GENERETAE 1 MILLION TOWARD WOMAN OWNED MINORITY BUSINESS

PEBBE:

2 DRIVERS, BOTH FOR GERRARI. DRIVER A DRIVE B IS A LITTLE BIT BETTER. DRIVER A GETS STARTS ON LAP 150. DRIVER B STARTS ON LAP 1. DRIVER B DOESNT HAVE ENOUGH GAS AND THEY SAY LET THE BEST DRIVER WIN.

We know minority owned businesses.

It was black business. white dude who stopped it from being black. white liberals to add ..

well make it white women as well. they were not pressed. they got the right pretty quickly. They weren't shot, dragged to this country and enslaved for many years. when they someone emigrates here they are here for an opportunity. we built this country for free. American owes us something. gives us an affirmative, fair change. my private company does of our 8 billion of project. 35% of our contracts to go to black businesses. black women owned business like my mother.

far too much, we get into position of power and we say we don't want to risk it. nothing worse than getting opportunity to make a change and not taking it.

Government is largest contractor in the world. trillions of dollars of contracts 

we feed that ecosystem. keep that money circulation on black ecosystem. affirmation tower doing it on a scale its never been done before, mason, architects, painters, lawyers. feed families, grow their businesses. 

PEBBE: I have a son that's 28, making up for my mistakes. making sure he doesn't make them. 

mistake I wouldn't do again is I WOULDNT SELL. long term investment 5 years, 10 years to stabilize. 

your capital is locked up. if you finance it with private equity you have to sell to pay private equity. capital wasn't free flowing to my company and to me and I didn't understand it as much when i started. i used my own money to grow my business. i would give 3-5 years of my life build a building then sell it. I sold Royal palm in 2005. I made 50 million. 2015 its not 300 million, i tried to buy it back. 

We gotta solve access to capital. to get there. the white guy they dont have to sell because they are working with each other. biggest regret. one of the reasons why i am fighting with all i got to change that. trying to do that for my family and trying to do that for you.

and i need you all to help us do this. with access to capital, this room would be full of millionaires. that would be my biggest regret, selling. i would sell nothing if i would do it all over again. 

PEBBES: I saw what she had to deal with every day. my mom was focused on exposing me. she got into real estate.

councilmember campaign she made me volunteer. he became mayor 4 years later. she got me capital hill, I was a paige. 630am to..  go to work in house of representatives. I was an intern and so there was 1 guy kept coming to the office. it was Bob Johson. I became friendly with him. asked him about, he just started BET. I graduated high school, went to NJ in a year and came back to DC. 

Remember Merry and Berry was mayor in DC and made it the MECCA OF ECONOMIC EMPOWERNENT FOR BLACK PEOPLE. they were embarrassed by FBI (they were set up and filmed). FBI went after Malcom x, MLK (tried to ruin his marriage). Govt been an impediment for us. 

Marian was mayor, biggest fight was cable franchise for DC. they awarded it to Bob Johson. he had hit cable franchise for Washington, DC. BET was his part time thing. it was economic engine that got dc going. he inspired me of what would be done. he thought big, very big. first black company to be on NY stock exchange and then bought it back. first black NBA team owner. he showed me the way. and we can all learn from him. first black billionaire. and he got his start from politics. so that tells us where we need to play. 

MG: how can we support you with affirmation tower?

CRAIG: UNLOCK the one working together. 

PEBBE: We were approved, new mayor came from buffalo ny a democrat. she's putting us on hold. if we cant win if we offer the most money, have the most diversity... then when are we going to win?

send an email and post online.. affirmation tower... cathy (who?) mayor in DC democrat from buffalo, NY

look up state controller and ... and say you want their access to capital. more black money managers. 

JEREMY ANDERSON:

Art gift of Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings

portrait with gold shavings

11:56am