William Monroe Kahane (born 1948) is an American businessman and philanthropist. He specializes in real estate finance. He is the co-founder of the real estate finance firm AR Global.
Early life and education
William Kahane is a son of Audrey P. Kahane and Harold Kahane. His mother counseled women who were giving up their children for adoption, his father was a sales representative for the Royal Metal Corporation. Kahane received a BA from Occidental College, an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a JD from the UCLA School of Law.
Early career
Kahane has been active in real estate, specifically the structuring and financial management of commercial real estate investments, for over 40 years. He began his career in 1974 as a real estate lawyer, practicing in the public and private sectors. From 1981 to 1992, he worked at Morgan Stanley & Co., where he specialized in real estate and became a Managing Director. While at Morgan Stanley, he oversaw real estate investment banking activities in Tokyo, where he advised on several high-profile transactions, including the sale of the Regent Hotel Chain to Four Seasons in 1992. He left Morgan Stanley to establish a real estate advisory and asset sales business known as Milestone Partners. From 1997 until 2005, Mr. Kahane was on the Board of Directors of Catellus Development Corp, and served as Non-Executive Chairman from 1999 to 2001.
American Realty Capital
In 2006, Kahane co-founded American Realty Capital Advisors, an investment manager that sponsored traded and non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs). The company, which was later renamed AR Capital (ARC), raised up to $12.8 billion of equity for nine REITs that were launched as vehicles whose shares would not be traded on any public exchange, as well as the publicly listed American Realty Capital Properties, which was later re-branded as VEREIT.
After the founding of AR Capital, Kahane held key board positions for many of the companies sponsored by or affiliated with ARC (e.g., American Realty Capital - Retail Centers of America, American Realty Capital Hospitality Trust, AR Capital Acquisition Corp.). After 2015 Kahane scaled back his involvement in some of these firms, and SEC filings suggested that as of late 2017 he was no longer a Director in any.
Philanthropy
William Kahane and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Kahane, have been recognized for their philanthropy and dedication to the support of the following academic institutions, charitable causes, and foundations: