Today we’d like to introduce you to David Halabu.
Thanks for sharing your story with us David. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After graduating college in 1997, I started as a clerk on a stock trading firm in New York City. After a one year clerkship, I was given an opportunity to trade capital for the firm. Within a number of years, I had risen the ranks to the head of trading. In 2001, I moved to Miami and helped open satellite offices in Florida and Michigan (my home state). I continued trading and managing trading desks until 2012, when I gave up trading as a career to focus on my true passion, which was investing in companies.
During my career as a trader, I was fond of investing and starting small niche side businesses with partners. As a clerk, a college buddy and I started a backend software that we developed for websites to create white label storefronts, that we ended up selling within 18 months of starting for over seven figures in 2001. I started a small nutritional company with a friend, which ended up merging with a larger competitor. That merger ended in failure as the parent ended up in bankruptcy. I started a poker software with a friend, a DVD set, and invested passively in real estate. In 2009, during the height of the credit crisis, I partnered with a family friend to lend money to those who were purchasing distressed assets. This lead to the beginning of Group 10, where we began to purchase non-performing real estate mortgages as a side investment. The side investment was so enjoyable and successful, I decided to give up trading to focus on real estate and other investments full time.
Since 2012, through Group 10, we predominately invested in real estate and medical-related investments. On the real estate front, we bought fixed and flipped over 100 houses, over 140 rental units, have lent on tens of millions of bridge loans to borrowers, and have repurposed or developed numerous commercial real estate projects in the Miami and SE Michigan area. On the private business side, Since 2015, we invested and had key decision-making abilities in 2 dental roll-ups, a dental wholesale company, and an ophthalmology roll up, all of which have had exits to Private Equity. In 2019, we purchased a local restoration franchise of ServPro to serve as a complement to our real estate business, as we can provide construction services with our years of experience rehabbing properties. My true passion is looking for opportunities and managing risk vs reward, which is why I really enjoy the process of being involved in a number of different, diversified business opportunities.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been anything but a smooth road. I have had many struggles. I began by living on a super tight budget right out of college in Manhattan. We had a very successful startup nutritional company that we decided to merge with a much larger partner. That ended very badly, as the parent company, unaware to us, had outstanding obligations, which caused us to lose our entire investment within a year. Once I had started investing, during the credit crisis, I saw a large chunk of my then net worth go down the drain on passive investments in real estate that I had made earlier. I have had many other investments, which I thought were good, or low risk, or synergistic to other relationships we had or had potential access to, that never really matured to where we believe they could. The key to all these mistakes and struggles is to learn from them.
I now know the following: never merge with anyone unless you have voting rights and the opportunity to protect your investment by learning more about the potential partner. When investing passively, make sure you are investing anything you can afford to lose. Sometimes a passive investment leads into you learning so much about the industry (real estate) that you take on some of the opportunities actively. Make sure you have great lawyers you protect you and think of protections you were not thinking could even be remotely possible. The key to most of the successful partnerships I’ve been a part of is that the jockey usually ends up being more important than the horse. They figure out a way to make things happen, or in the case of a bad situation, minimizing the damage. I always tell my kids, in life, you either win or learn, so take all the failures as opportunities to just get better.
Group 10 Capital – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Group 10 is focused on investments. Today we have a portfolio of real estate, but we are not as aggressive as we had been in the past. We continue to lend money against real estate and purchase select distressed assets, but are a bit worried about pricing and risk/reward outlook. We have been net sellers in the last two years and don’t anticipate changing that perspective for at least a year or so.
We purchased a Servpro Franchise, a restoration company, for a number of reasons, mainly as a great non-correlated recession-resistant stand-alone business, but also as a hedge against our current South Florida real estate portfolio. We are focused on building out this business and our construction management services to others looking to remediate or rehab their real estate.
What we are most proud of is our ability to be nimble, creative, and not be beholden to a group of investors as we are self-funded and that allows us to sit on our hands until we see opportunities where the risk-reward profile seems opportunistic. We have also been very creative with employees, partners, and others to find ways to incentivize everyone and share in the success and setbacks with those we work with. We’ve always recognized that 1+1> 2 when everyone is working together and for a common goal.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
My proudest moment of my career honestly was walking away from a very laid back, lucrative career as a trader to focus more on the Challenges of entrepreneurship and non-liquid investments. I had a great lifestyle, but I wasn’t mentally challenged and spent most days staring at a computer making money, but not really doing anything of benefit or help to the world or the community I lived in.
Contact Info:
- Address: 9480 ne 2nd Ave
Miami Shores, FL 33138 - Website: ServproNorthMiami.com
- Phone: 3058954880
- Email: Info@Servpro10927.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/servpro_northmiami/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/servproNorthMiami/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiamiServpro
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/servpro-of-north-miami-hollywood
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