Emmet Austin
Partner
Mr. Austin’s real estate and finance career spans over 25 years and includes all facets of real estate including operations, management, investment, finance, and construction. Mr. Austin has been involved in over $750M of transactions as a principal and has advised some of the largest real estate companies in the United States, including KKR, Starwood Capital, Kimco Realty, and SL Green. Previously, Mr. Austin was Chief Investment Officer at Stonemar Capital, where he developed and executed Stonemar’s investment strategy across the United States while simultaneously launching Stonemar’s asset management subsidiary, Stonemar Realty Management. Prior to Stonemar, Mr. Austin started his career at Goldman Sachs in the investment banking group before moving on to BNP Paribas and Vitol Capital, the principal investment subsidiary of the Vitol Group. Mr. Austin received his undergraduate degree as a Calesa Foundation Scholar and a Kohn Fellow at Columbia University and the London School of Economics. His graduate work was in Real Estate Finance as a Dean's Graduate Fellow and Graduate Scholar at New York University.
Michael Sullivan
Partner
For over 30 years, Mr. Sullivan has been involved in the acquisition, management, and asset management of approximately $4 billion of hotel assets on a global basis and has built both hotel investment firms and management platforms. Prior to Suncroft, Mr. Sullivan helped reposition the operations of the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas to facilitate the sale to Blackstone and was a Managing Director and Head of Hospitality for Gemini Real Estate Advisors. Prior to Gemini, he established and ran the hotel asset management platform for Sunstone Hotel Investors as Sunstone transitioned from a West Coast based owner/operator to a national full-service investment group. He was responsible for all owned and managed hotels while additionally overseeing the re-positioning of a portfolio of 16 hotels that facilitated Sunstone’s 2004 IPO. Prior to Sunstone, Mr. Sullivan was a Vice President with Colony Capital, where he was responsible for hotel acquisitions and the asset management of approximately $1 billion of hospitality assets around the world. He is a former board member of the Hotel Asset Managers Association and Aman Resorts and earned his B.S. in Accounting from Boston College.
Andrew Schupak
Special Advisor
Andrew has 30 years of private equity, distressed investing and investment banking experience in a wide range of sectors including hospitality, real estate, food service, gaming, professional sports, media and food and consumer products.
Andrew is CEO of SGI MB, a New York based merchant banking boutique, and Special Advisor to Suncroft Capital LLC, a New York based hotel investor and provider of hotel asset management and owner advisory services. SGI MB specializes in developing and supervising the implementation of transformative business strategies for its partners and supporting those strategies with flexible private equity and venture capital. Andrew also provides capital markets, leveraged finance, M&A and restructuring advice through SGI Securities (member FINRA/SIPC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SGI MB. Among his many accomplishments with SGI MB, Andrew earned a Deal of the Year award for the recapitalization and financing of the Spirits of St. Louis Basketball Club.
Prior to SGI MB, Andrew founded and ran the Financial Sponsors Group at Wasserstein Perella & Co. After the company’s sale to Dresdner Kleinwort, he served as Managing Director, ran the Private Equity Advisory Group and served on the firm’s operating and fairness committees. Andrew served as Head of the Wasserstein Perella & Co. Restructuring Group from 1995-1996, and continued to work closely with the Restructuring Group as a senior member of the then newly formed Leveraged Finance Group and as Head of the Financial Sponsors Group, providing advice to private equity firms on identifying, evaluating, executing and financing distressed investment opportunities and providing restructuring advice on distressed portfolio companies.
Prior to Wasserstein Perella, Andrew was a member of the Bear Stearns restructuring group, advising on business plan development, valuation, and restructuring transaction execution in numerous hospitality, hospitality mortgage, and real estate situations including Prime Hospitality, Service, Resorts International, and NVR Homes, among others.
Prior to Wasserstein Perella, Andrew worked in the Office of the CFO of The Horn & Hardart Company in the design of and implementation of a corporate restructuring featuring the disposition of numerous hospitality, real estate, and restaurant assets.
Through SGI MB, Andrew is the lead investor in Suncroft’s 2016 Staybridge Suites – Myrtle Beach acquisition and has participated in its subsequent refinancing and recapitalization. Andrew participated with Suncroft in CenterSquare’s acquisition of the Holiday Inn – Hasbrouck Heights.
Andrew has a BS in Finance from the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University (f/k/a/ Crouse-Hinds School of Management). Andrew is a member of the Board of Directors of the Metro Queens Boys & Girls Club and served on the Poly Prep Governance Committee. In addition, Andrew represented the U.S. as a member of the Long Course Triathlon Team in the 2007 World Championship.