Former NY Governor Looking to Launch Distressed RE Fund

Former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer apparently isn’t waiting long to move into his next venture. On the heels of his resignation in the wake of a prostitution scandal, Spitzer is planning a distressed real estate fund that will build off of his father’s business, according to a report Tuesday afternoon in the New York Sun. The report claimed that Spitzer gathered several high-powered labor union officials in a conference room at his father’s business late last month and pitched them on his idea of a vulture fund that would snap up distressed real estate and failed developer projects in a bid to expand his father’s well-known business — a business that has quickly become crowded as giants including The Blackstone Group (BX), the Carlyle Group, Marathon Asset Management and BlackRock Inc. (BLK) have moved in to the same or somewhat related fields. The Sun’s coverage said that Spitzer is targeting projects between $100 and $500 million, but that he has not yet set firm plans for a launch date or established particular purchase targets. The former governor has not commented to the press since his departure from office in March. Disclosure: The author held no positions in BX or BLK when this story was originally published. HW reporters and writers follow a strict disclosure policy, the first in the mortgage trade.