Three situations, and how the work runs.
REST Equity Partners advises owner-operated and family-held real estate, hospitality, and construction companies whose financial infrastructure has fallen behind the portfolio. The trigger varies: a loan maturity, an equity raise, no consolidated view of the portfolio, distributions made without reserves, a buy-sell-hold decision nobody can get to, a finance function the owner still runs personally. The work is the same. Find the problem, build what fixes it, structure the capital, hand it back.
Three situations we are built for.
Not sizes. Owner-operated and family-held companies with a sub-institutional level finance function between ownership and the decisions.
The operator scaling past its infrastructure
The portfolio has tripled and the books are where they were at ten units. A lender or an equity partner now wants audited statements, K-1s on time, and reporting by entity, and the owner is still approving every invoice.
What we do. Reporting by entity and by asset, controls a lender and an auditor accept, the people and systems to run them, then the debt or equity the numbers now support.
What is handed back. A finance function that runs without the owner in it, and lender relationships built on numbers they trust.
The large private holder that has stalled
A portfolio built over decades where the reporting cannot separate how the assets perform from how the property manager performs. Strategy conversations stall because nobody trusts the number in front of them.
What we do. A short assessment, a heat map of what is solid and what is fragile, governance and reporting benchmarks, then the decisions: refinance, sell, hold, reposition.
What is handed back. A board package the family acts on, and a decision made.
The family or foreign investor entering the US
A family office or an investor abroad establishing or expanding US real estate holdings, usually arriving through a private banker, US counsel, or a CPA.
What we do. Quarterback the entity, banking, reporting, and operator set-up across the advisors already in place, in English, Portuguese, or Spanish.
What is handed back. A US holding the family can oversee from abroad.
How an engagement runs.
Diagnosis first, then the function, then the capital. The scope follows the decision: some engagements are a financing or portfolio decision on the team and systems already in place; others need changes to the finance function first. We set that scope before the work begins. A call is usually enough to tell whether we're the right fit; if we're not, we'll say so.
First conversation
No charge. You describe what's stuck; we ask the questions that usually matter. A call is usually enough to tell whether we're the right fit.
Written read
A brief written view of the issue and the scope we would recommend, at no charge. Short enough to read in one sitting, specific enough to act on.
Build
Reporting, controls, people, process, and systems, sized to the business you're becoming. We work down through the finance function as far as the engagement needs, and no further.
Capital
Debt and equity structured on numbers a lender trusts; introductions, negotiation, closing. We earn nothing from the other side of the table.
Hand off
We stay until it runs without us, then step back. (We can provide post hand-off advisory if it's the best solution for you.)
Six situations, in full.
Different sizes, different sectors, the same pattern: financial infrastructure and decision-making didn't keep up with the business.
Converting an underperforming hotel to multifamily
A family-built condominium that didn't sell out, later run as an extended-stay hotel with income falling every year and maintenance deferred. Ownership had several viable options, selling, ground-leasing, or reinvesting as-is, and no agreed financial basis for choosing among them. We conducted the highest-and-best-use analysis, recommended a multifamily conversion, and then led the family through the decision and the execution: developer selection, joint-venture terms with a blue-chip residential developer and property manager, completion guarantees and guarantor structure, a $50M construction loan, a lump-sum GC contract negotiated through pandemic logistics, insurance and risk, façade and energy requirements, and finish decisions committed early to open before high season. Four commercially zoned floors went to a ten-year block lease with a major hospital system rather than to office or hotel use.
From 2021 to 2024, NOI went from about $0.8M to about $6M a year. A $45M asset, with $25M of equity in it, is now worth about $100M: a clear case of following the math and running a transparent process with strong partners.
Selling a development site to restore liquidity
A Midtown East assemblage with 175,000 buildable square feet, held since 2013, with an unsustainable carry cost and a building profile outside the group's core competence. We made the case to ownership that the right decision was to sell, and to sell before the market turned. Then we ran the process: remediation, tax-lot unification, tenant exits, demolition, marketing, negotiation, deal structuring, and closing. The site sold in 2019 for $106M on a $40M basis; within two years nothing comparable in the submarket traded near that level. The proceeds built a war chest that enabled better decisions on the other properties and a path toward running a single family office.
From operating businesses to a family office
A three-generation family with a heavy construction company, two Manhattan hotels, and a large, high-profile development site, making decisions on familiarity rather than on an agreed financial basis. The construction company had lost $35M over two years. From our first year we put the same thesis in front of the board: exit the operating businesses, reposition what is worth keeping, and move the family to passive capital, so wealth compounds across generations without management expertise in five industries. Over seven years, 2016 to 2023, that meant the land sale, a structured exit from the construction company, the multifamily conversion, and redeployment into LP positions returning over 12% with no NAV loss, against about 3% on the portfolio before the shift. We hired an acquisitions director in 2022 to develop as the future head of the office, designed governance so control sits between him and the Istanbul finance manager, and left once it was clear it would run without us. One US employee on payroll, with processes and systems that support minimal overhead.
Building audit-ready reporting for a growing developer
A boutique developer starting a $500M South Florida program had landed a hedge-fund principal's family office as its limited partner. The family office wanted audited statements and K-1s; the general partner was on single-entity QuickBooks. Over 2015 and 2016 we took the company from that to a multi-entity system with property-level controls, cost and revenue workflows, and the staff to run it, in under a year, alongside the underwriting, lender work, and an EB-5 structure. The capital closed, the properties were built and sold, and the relationship is still in place.
Rebuilding financial controls across international entities
A global developer's Brazil region had restated its financial statements to investors that included sovereign wealth funds, global pension funds, and other high-profile institutions. We were brought in from New York in 2010 to fix the region and help it scale. We put New York-level controls in place in country: dual review on every submission, transaction memos agreed with the auditors before year-end, interim audits through the year, training and job descriptions aligned to outcomes, and enough time on the ground, in Portuguese, to replace an us-and-them posture with buy-in. The region reported without a consolidation error for the rest of our tenure. On that footing we helped design the entity structures for deals exceeding $3B of new capital, later took on China, India, and Mexico, and supported a 101-entity system implementation across seven jurisdictions.
Turning around hotels that could not service their debt
Fifteen years at Marriott International as the finance lead sent to properties with operating and financial problems. In San Salvador, a hotel that could not service its debt after two earthquakes in 2000: embassy and USAID exclusivity agreements, hundreds of cost measures, a third-party café, and rebuilding work in the community. Profit went from about 10% to about 25% of revenue, covering debt service; RevPAR index from second to first in the market; guest satisfaction from the 70s to the high 80s. Hotel of the Year across Marriott International in 2002.
In Bahia, a 504-room resort complex that had not produced financials in two years, operating under pro forma, in workout, with an owner who was not paying. Three years of financials produced in one year and audited, the brand's first all-inclusive conversion, wholesale partnerships, the owner's working-capital obligations enforced, and about a year as interim general manager of both hotels. Occupancy above 65% and the first profit by 2005; more than $20M of workout receivables recovered.
Independent, by design
We don't earn placement fees or commissions from lenders, brokers, or equity sources. Fees are fixed or time-based, with a success fee only where it keeps our interest aligned with yours. That is what lets us tell you when the answer is to do nothing.
When we're not the right fit
- You need bookkeeping or a controller. We work alongside both, on the decisions and the finance leadership outside their scope.
- You already have an institutional finance organisation between ownership and the decisions.
- You want hours and tasks rather than an outcome and a handoff.
Questions owners ask.
What does the first conversation cost?
Nothing. You describe the decision you cannot get to and we ask the questions that usually matter. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.
Do you earn fees from lenders or brokers?
No. We don't earn placement fees or commissions from lenders, brokers, or equity sources. Fees are fixed or time-based, with a success fee only where it keeps our interest aligned with yours.
Do you replace my CFO or controller?
Not necessarily. Ownership brings us in for the decision. We work down through the finance function as far as the engagement needs, then hand it back, sometimes to a different CFO than the one in place, and sometimes working alongside the existing CFO.
What size of company do you work with?
Owner-operated and family-held companies with a sub-institutional level finance function between ownership and the decisions. That is a structure, not a dollar threshold.