Housing Firm Pretium Hires Former Goldman CFO As Co-President
New York-based investment firm Pretium is putting its more than $55B in assets under management under the eye of a former chief financial officer at Goldman Sachs Group.
Stephen Scherr was appointed co-president alongside existing President Jonathan Pruzan, who spent 30 years at Morgan Stanley before joining Pretium in September 2023. Pretium was founded by Don Mullen, who worked with Scherr at Goldman, BNN Bloomberg reported.
“Stephen's expertise in running businesses in financial services and consumer-facing sectors will be a tremendous asset to Pretium as we leverage our distinctive position as both an investment firm and operator of complex, vertically integrated businesses,” Mullen said in a statement.
Scherr spent his final three years at Goldman as CFO before moving to Hertz Global Holdings Inc. as the car rental company’s chairman and CEO for two years. He left that role in March.
After Mullen began acquiring homes at depressed prices during the Great Recession, Pretium has grown its portfolio to around 100,000 rental homes. The company has also stepped into the multifamily market and is looking to take on more real estate debt.
Pretium’s growth comes amid a surge of concern about the lack of affordable housing in many parts of the country.
Pushback against the single-family rental industry has come from various levels of government and neighborhood groups over the last few years as investors turned individual homes into rentals. If Democrats regain control of Congress after the November election, they could look to force institutional investors to sell off their collections of single-family homes or prevent them from converting homes into rentals, as they attempted to do last year.
Mullen said the company has begun working with different mayors to help address housing issues.
“We should be part of the solution even if we are seen by some as a part of the problem,” Mullen told BNN Bloomberg.
Bennett Goodman’s Hunter Point Capital bought a minority stake in Pretium earlier this year. That deal was expected to help fund Pretium’s expansion.
“I have admired the success of Pretium since its founding in 2012, and I cannot think of a place that brings a more dynamic, forward-thinking approach to investing capital,” Scherr said in a statement. “I look forward to leveraging my expertise across a diverse range of businesses and partnering with Jon Pruzan, whom I have known personally and professionally for decades, to scale Pretium's platform and explore new avenues for strategic growth.”
