Massey partner Shkury departs to start firm

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From left: Shimon Shkury, Victor Sozio, Mike Tortorici and Ivan Petrovic

Massey Knakal Realty Services partner Shimon Shkury left the firm today with his entire team of junior brokers and support staff to start a new sales company named Ariel Property Advisors, Shkury told The Real Deal.

The new 12-person firm, based in Midtown, has five brokers, including Shkury and former Massey Knakal agents Victor Sozio, Michael Tortorici, Christopher Lefferts and Ivan Petrovic. There are seven people on the support staff. “We left this morning and we started it today,” Shkury said.

With investment sales growing this year, Shkury, 39, said it was a good time to launch a new venture. “It is a time of opportunity,” he said.

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Paul Massey, Massey Knakal CEO, said in a statement to The Real Deal that Shkury and his team, “made a major contribution to our firm’s geographic expansion.  We are fond of Shimon and wish him every success in the future.”

The company, which will focus on multi-family and development sites, was financed by friends and the brokers themselves, but not by institutions.

Shkury’s Massey Knakal group focused on multi-family property sales in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, closing $850 million in transactions and completed asset evaluations for $10 billion worth of properties, he said.

Shkury, originally from Israel, was named a partner at Massey Knakal in 2003. He is the fourth partner to leave and start his own firm. Mahmud Wazihullah founded Commercial Realty Hub in Long Island in 2007; Timothy King and Brian Leary in 2008 founded CPEX Real Estate, in Brooklyn.

Another Massey Knakal broker who was not a partner, Ofer Cohen, founded Terra CRG, in Brooklyn, in 2008.