Ben Shaoul

Shaoul was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City to an Iranian Jewish family,[1] the son of Abraham and Minoo Shaoul.[6] His father ran an antiques business.[1] He grew up in Great Neck, New York.[1][2] He briefly attended community college but dropped out at the age of 19.[1]

After he left school, he interned for a summer with a New York-based developer run by the Ohebshalom family, (also of Persian Jewish heritage).[1][2] He oversaw the renovation of his father's property and later took out a mortgage on the building.[1][2] In 1998, he and his parents co-founded Magnum Real Estate Group.[7] In 1999, Shaoul used the proceeds from that mortgage to buy his first property, which was located on Mott Street in Nolita.[1][8] Shaoul purchases buildings that have not been renovated for a long time and renovates them, and then increases the rent.[1] He primarily focuses on the East Village has added luxury apartments on top existing buildings.[1]

In 2013, Shaoul and Magnum Real Estate Group opened Bloom62, a luxury apartment building located in the East Village.[5][9] Shaoul and Westbrook Partners sold a jointly-held investment portfolio of 17 properties for $130 million to Jared Kushner in February of that year.[10] He later partnered with SL Green Realty to acquire properties in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.[11] Shaoul also began developing a dormitory for the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan[9][10][12] and ventured into Tribeca where he purchased the top 22 floors of the 32 story art-deco Verizon Building for conversion to condominiums.[13][14] In July 2014, he purchased the 199-unit Post Toscana on the Upper East Side and the 138-unit Post Luminaria in Kips Bay for $270 million to convert into condominiums. Both buildings have soon-to-expire tax abatements thereafter exempting them from rent stabilization rules.[15][16]

Shaoul has acquired and sold over 100 properties to include everything from the renovation of thousands of apartments to a $500M condominium conversion.[17][18]

Shaoul is married to Megan Walsh Shaoul.[2] They have three children: Henry, Piper, and Mayer.[19] He has been criticized for contributing to the decline of rent-regulated apartments in the East Village.[1] He was labeled "Sledgehammer Shaoul" after confronting tenants in a building he purchased and being photographed with construction workers holding sledgehammers and crowbars.[1] In 2014, he was sued by his parents for using the proceeds from the refinancing of co-owned assets to fund his development projects.[6][7] The dispute was later resolved.[20]