Daniel S. Abrams
C-level Finance Executive
Hospitality Finance Industry Leader
Tax & Corporate Lawyer
Blockchain & DeFi Expert
ABOUT
Daniel S. Abrams has deep experience as both a business executive and a lawyer. Over his career, Mr. Abrams spearheaded multiple billions of dollars of acquisition and financing transactions, and played strategic roles in complex litigation matters, workouts and restructurings. Mr. Abrams has led transactions covering every aspect of asset ownership, including acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures, distressed debt acquisitions, restructurings (both within and outside of bankruptcy), sale-leasebacks and conventional and capital markets financings ranging from individual assets to major, multi-asset portfolios. As of late, Mr. Abrams has been immersed in the blockchain industry, investing in cryptocurrencies, identifying optimal Layer 1 and Layer 2 protocols for different use cases and focusing particularly on DeFi and potential applications to real-world assets.
Leading Private & Public Companies
Commencing in 2010, Mr. Abrams acted as Executive Vice President - Investments and Business Development for a family office, Atrium Holding Company, one of the largest privately-owned hotel owner/operators in the U.S. Atrium's assets included over 80 hotels, 20,000 rooms and 2 million square feet of meeting and events space across 29 states. Atrium’s management business, Atrium Hospitality, is a leading hotel and asset management company overseeing a portfolio of full service and select service hotels under the Hilton, Marriott, Starwood, IHG, Wyndham and Independent flags.
Mr. Abrams has extensive experience in all segments of real estate, covering not only hotels but also land for development, office, retail, multi-family and net leased properties. He previously spent nine years with iStar Financial Inc. (NYSE: STAR) as Executive Vice President and Head of Originations (which group then had more than 40 staff members). iStar is one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the U.S. At iStar, Mr. Abrams was responsible for deploying iStar’s capital in structured mortgage and mezzanine financing transactions for all types of commercial real estate, including for the hospitality industry.
Pioneering Industry Standards
Prior to iStar, Mr. Abrams was a co-founder and principal of Citadel Realty Group, LLC, with former Head of Citicorp Real Estate, Pat Goldstein, and CMBS lending advisor, Joel Ross. Citadel was a New York based boutique investment bank specializing in advisory work and debt and equity placements for commercial real estate properties and companies throughout the US.
Before founding Citadel, Mr. Abrams was a Managing Director at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (now Credit Suisse), where he was responsible for the hospitality and leisure practice, focusing on debt originations, equity offerings and advisory assignments to public and private companies in that area; and a Managing Director and Head of the Hospitality Finance Group of Nomura Capital. While at Nomura Capital, Mr. Abrams helped to pioneer the Commercial Mortgaged Backed Securities business with Ethan Penner and led the financing of over $6.5 billion in the hospitality sector and over $600 million in the office, multifamily and retail sectors.
Before joining Nomura Capital in 1993, Mr. Abrams had been a partner in both the Tax and Corporate Departments at Rosenman & Colin (now Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP), a major New York City law firm.
Perspective & Experience
Mr. Abrams's legal background (particularly in taxation) continues to facilitate his ability to analyze, structure and negotiate complex transactions involving acquisitions, full ownership, joint ventures and financings of individual properties and pools of assets, as well as corporate transactions generally. He has served as a member of the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Industry Real Estate Finance Advisory Council (IREFAC) and as member of the Hotel Development Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI).
Mr. Abrams received an LL.M. in Taxation from the New York University School of Law, a J.D. from the National Law Center of The George Washington University, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, and a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He recently completed the Wharton Executive Education Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets Program.