Miki Naftali

Who they are

Miki Naftali runs his eponymous Naftali Group, one of New York's most consistent sellers of luxury condos and, lately, one of its biggest risk-takers. He has a reputation for contrarian timing: by his CIO David Hochfelder's account, the firm sat out acquisitions from 2014 to 2017 while peers piled in, then bought six deals worth billions of dollars in roughly 16 months after the pandemic hit. That haul included the Williamsburg Wharf site, The Henry on the Upper West Side, 255 East 77th St. and the Willow in Gramercy.

The track record is mostly Upper East and Upper West Side boutique condos sold at top dollar: The Benson, 200 East 83rd, 1045 and 1165 Madison, and the Bellemont, which Hochfelder says sold out at around $4,000 a foot. Equity has often come from Genghis Hadi's Gulf-backed Nahla Capital, and more recently from Len Blavatnik's Access Industries, his partner on the 3.75-acre Williamsburg Wharf. Naftali alum Victor Sigoura now runs his own development shop, Legion Investment Group.

His defining bet is 800 Fifth Ave. In 2025 Naftali bought the 208-unit rental from the Spitzer and Winter families for about $810M, a deal Newmark's team called the highest land price per square foot in city history. He closed with $675M from JPMorgan and Goldentree. The plan is a roughly 52-unit condo tower, with lender materials floating $11,000-a-foot blended pricing and a projected $2.9B sellout. In August 2026 the firm hired Newmark to raise a $1.3B construction loan, about $25M per unit. In Brooklyn, Barings refinanced Wharf Phase I for $374M in May 2026, and JPMorgan and Goldentree took the $525M Phase II loan after Bank OZK cooled on New York. The open question is whether the ultra-luxury buyer pool is as deep as Naftali is betting.