Aby Rosen

Aby Rosen is quite the resilient dealmaker.

As building owners were dealing with a struggling office market and rising rates, Rosen’s RFR last year sold an office building at 980 Madison Avenue, which had been placed on its loan servicer’s watchlist, to Bloomberg Philanthropies for $560 million. 

And then this spring, RFR sold a building that had faced foreclosure, 522 Fifth Avenue near Grand Central, for $456 million to Amazon. Rosen was also able to negotiate a settlement with Jeff Krasnoff’s Rialto Capital at 17 State Street, where the servicer had filed a foreclosure action and threatened to enforce a personal guarantee.

Rosen and partner Michael Fuchs made a name for themselves by collecting trophy Manhattan properties. And while they’re far from alone in being hit by distress in recent years, the magnitude of the swings they took certainly brought more attention to their misses.

Most notably, RFR lost the Chrysler Building earlier this year after failing to pay its rent on the iconic skyscraper to Cooper Union. And in April, the company lost its office building at 285 Madison Avenue to its Korean lenders in foreclosure.

But they’ve had their share of triumphs too: RFR started 2025 by refinancing its trophy Seagram Building to the tune of $1.2 billion. And behind the scenes, Rosen seems undeterred in his quest for the next big deal.

— Rich Bockmann