Harley Gold, the founder of Peakhill Capital, is a man who took his career and turned it into a vehicle to help the Jewish community. The commercial real estate asset manager provides financing structures to developers, investors and REITs (real estate investment trusts). The company has two different divisions: Peakhill Equity and Peakhill Project Advisory.
Harley’s career was not smooth sailing. At a certain point, when a turn of events forced him to evaluate his future moves, he bet on himself that he would turn Peakhill Capital into a juggernaut in the lending space and won the bet.
Last but not least, Harley is the founder of the revolutionary Lighthouse Credit Union, which was created for the purpose of helping members of the Jewish community purchase homes. How is a credit union different from a traditional bank, and why has it changed the landscape for frum Yidden? Read on.
—Nesanel
I grew up in Toronto and attended Jewish day school even though my family wasn’t observant. My mother taught Hebrew school and my father worked in retail. We were middle-to-lower income—no vacations, nothing fancy—and that pushed me to be resourceful, entrepreneurial and comfortable taking calculated risks.
“In school, my main focus was athletics: tennis, track, rugby and skiing. I often missed classes for competitions, but those years instilled discipline, teamwork and the importance of showing up in me. I was also fascinated by the stock market.
“At the University of Toronto, I began studying economics and geography, choosing relatively easier courses so I could keep up my sports schedule. But by my second year I was also studying religion. I was especially drawn to Jewish studies, taught by both Jewish and non-Jewish professors, and I ended up with a degree in economics, religion and geography. I completed the degree in three years.
“In college I had joined the Jewish fraternity, AEPi (Alpha Epsilon Pi), and later began working for them. Fraternities are essentially social clubs. Chapters meet once a week and plan various social events and parties. At some of the bigger schools fraternities even define where you live, since many have houses.
“AEPi’s Jewish identity is central. It was one of the first Jewish fraternities, and today it’s the only one where everyone in the chapter is Jewish. It’s not strictly religious, but it provides community, Shabbat dinners and holiday programs. I traveled to schools all over the Midwest recruiting Jewish students and building chapters. It taught me how to network, sell and manage relationships, all skills that would define my career.
“That’s actually how I met my wife. Like me, she wasn’t religious at the time. After we got married and moved to the Bathurst-Lawrence area in Toronto, the community slowly drew us toward the gradual observance of mitzvos. It was transformative.
“The way I got involved in real estate is a funny story. After college and working for the fraternity, I did a one-year MBA program at Canisius, a private university in Buffalo. It was a unique program because I could complete it in one year and still come back home for the weekends. I graduated right around 9/11. I was supposed to get an internship on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs, but when I called to follow up I was told they weren’t hiring because everything was in flux. When I asked what I should do, my contact said, ‘When times are bad, go into real estate.’ I’d never thought about it before, and the guy was actually a bond trader!
“A few months later, a real estate company based out of Buffalo did a small presentation on the real estate market. At the end of the presentation, they said, ‘If anybody is interested in this space come and talk to us. We’re hiring.’ When I told them that I lived in Toronto, they replied, ‘Look, we like you. We’d like you to come work for us, and at some point we want to open an office in Toronto. Why don’t you work here for about a year and then we’ll open the Toronto office?’
‘‘So I started working for them. The firm specialized in arranging commercial real estate financing, especially retail. I underwrote deals and helped expand relationships. I was going back and forth between Buffalo and Toronto because it’s not that far, and then they ended up opening the office in Toronto.
“After about a year, the focus shifted to bringing American life insurance companies into the Canadian lending market. I spent months learning their credit programs and structuring deals to fit their criteria. Once I understood their boxes, I began originating loans myself. So within two years I was out meeting borrowers and sourcing financing. My role was simple: If someone was buying a building and needed a loan, they called me. We exclusively represented AIG, ING and others in Canada. Borrowers went through our firm to access those lenders, and I was their point of connection.
“I was doing well when I discovered that a Jewish executive at one of the companies had quietly added a clause to our contract tying the account to me personally, saying that the contract would be void if I left. When my boss realized this, he was enraged and began cutting my commissions. So I left and joined Penmore (later CMOS), a Vancouver-based lender backed by institutional capital.
“I spent about a dozen years there. We grew from a 50-person firm to 500, and the Toronto branch grew from three people to nearly 200. I became a partner. We lent on office, industrial, retail and multifamily assets, doing loans across acquisition, construction and refinance. I built networks in the Toronto and Montreal Jewish business communities and became the top originator and top earner, closing about a billion dollars annually. As the company grew from $300 million to $7 billion a year, I accumulated a significant equity stake.
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