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Kushner Companies names Laurent Morali CEO

First time real estate company looked outside family to lead firm

Kushner CEO Laurent Morali (center) with Nicole Kushner Meyer and Jared Kushner (Kushner, Getty, Morali via Sasha Maslov)
Kushner CEO Laurent Morali (center) with Nicole Kushner Meyer and Jared Kushner (Kushner, Getty, Morali via Sasha Maslov)

Kushner Companies is moving away from its namesake for its next CEO, promoting Laurent Morali to the post.

Morali is being elevated from president to CEO effective immediately, the Wall Street Journal first reported. Nicole Kushner Meyer, a member of the company since 2015 and Jared’s younger sister, is filling the president role.

Morali — the first leader of the real estate firm to come from outside the Kushner clan — is filling a post Jared Kushner left vacant in 2016 to work for his father-in-law Donald Trump’s White House run and, later, administration.

Morali was named president of the company in 2016 after serving as head of acquisitions and capital markets, where he worked under Jared. Morali joined the firm from Calyon Securities in 2008 and played an essential role in $3.2 billion in acquisitions during his first eight years with the company.

The former president also led the firm’s expansion into retail investment and lending.

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Kushner values its property holdings at more than $15 billion. In recent years, the company has attracted scrutiny for its business dealings due to Jared’s ties to Trump. Kushner Cos. has also started to look away from Manhattan office deals and more towards rentals in growing hubs, such as the mid-Atlantic and Southeast.

Meanwhile, Jared is in the process of launching Affinity Partners, a Miami-based investment firm, as well as working on a book on his White House experience.

The company has also been busy in South Florida. Earlier in the month, the company scored two loans totaling $127 million for a major apartment development planned for Edgewater. Kushner has several other plans in the region, including a massive downtown Fort Lauderdale development in partnership with Aimco and two mixed-use projects in Wynwood.

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[WSJ] — Holden Walter-Warner

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DevelopmentJared KushnerKushner Companies