Multifamily megadeal: Eisenberg’s A&E buys Brooklyn-centric portfolio for $360M

Dermot assembled 1,000-unit, 32-building package over more than a decade

From left: William Dickey, Douglas Eisenberg, 266 Washington Avenue in Brooklyn and Aaron Jungreis
From left: William Dickey, Douglas Eisenberg, 266 Washington Avenue in Brooklyn and Aaron Jungreis

UPDATED, 2:32 p.m., Feb. 19: Douglas Eisenberg’s A&E Real Estate Holdings acquired a massive multifamily portfolio spanning 32 buildings across three boroughs from the Dermot Company for north of $360 million, The Real Deal has learned.

The Brooklyn-centric portfolio contains more than 1,000 apartments — a mix of rent-stabilized and market-rate units — and 17 commercial units. There are 19 buildings in Brooklyn, 10 in Manhattan and three in Queens. Of the Manhattan properties, eight are in Morningside Heights and two are in East Village. Six of the Brooklyn buildings are in the stroller-friendly Park Slope. A six-story, 113-unit Clinton Hill building at 266 Washington Avenue is the largest building in the portfolio.

With the deal, Dermot, led by William Dickey, has divested nearly all its non-new construction assets in the city, according to sources close to the deal. It had taken more than a decade for the firm to assemble the mid-rise portfolio, property records show.

Rosewood Realty Group’s Aaron Jungreis represented A&E; no broker represented Dermot. Jungreis declined to comment, and representatives at A&E and Dermot couldn’t be reached.

A&E’s plans for the portfolio are unknown. The off-market deal for the full assemblage closed Tuesday.

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In 2011, Eisenberg left Urban American to launch A&E, a Midtown-based investment firm. A&E bought a four-building Inwood portfolio from Dermot in 2013 for $31 million, as TRD reported.

Urban American, led by Douglas’s father Philip, has been busy with portfolio sales of its own. The firm sold a controlling stake in the nearly 4,000-unit Putnam portfolio to Brookfield Property Partners for $1 billion — while continuing as a joint-venture partner and managing the buildings — and is in contract to sell the 1,430-unit “Kings and Queens” portfolio to Brooklyn investor Peter Rebenwurzel for $236 million.

A&E’s latest acquisition is one of the year’s biggest multifamily trades so far. In January, Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities entered contract to buy 25 buildings from the Caiola family for nearly $800 million, as TRD reported.

Adam Pincus contributed reporting.