Shaffer dead at 73, international broker

Real Estate Weekly, August 27, 2003

Jack Arnold Shaffer, a Manhattan investment banker and major real estate broker, died on August 18 in Norwalk, Conn.

Shaffer, who specialized deals like the sale of the Plaza Hotel, became prominent in the 1980's with the influx of European and Japanese investors looking for bargains in what was then a depressed property market in New York city.

He was 73 and his death was attributed to complications of kidney cancer, his family said.

For more than 30 years, Shaffer was a principal and managing partner of the New York real estate firm of the Sonnenblick-Goldman Company.

"Jack was a unique individual," said Mark Gordon, principal and managing director of Sonnenblick-Goldman Company, who worked closely with Shaffer for more than seven years. "He loved what he did professionally. He was regarded as a leading expert in the community."

In 2001, he opened his own firm, Jack A. Shaffer & Company, which concentrated on investing in overseas properties. The business was operated in partnership with Trinity Investments Trust.

Shaffer was born in Chicago and graduated with a business degree from the University of Miami in 1951 and Northwestern University's law school in 1953. At the end of the Korean War, he served in the Army's judge advocate general branch, rising to captain.

He took an interest in the Far East and international deals, eventually conducting business in the Middle East and Europe as well. He oversaw Sonnenblick-Goldman's operations in California before becoming managing partner in charge of international investments.

The deals he arranged over the years were often worth hundreds of millions of dollars, starting with the sale of the Hyatt Regency Maui to a Japanese group. In 1987 he represented Robert M. Bass and the Aoki Corporation in their $1.5 billion purchase of the Westin Hotel chain, and he represented the Bass Group again that year in its sale of the Plaza Hotel to Donald J. Trump.

He had a hand in ownership changes at prime London hotels like Claridge's and the Connaught, and in Marriott International's acquisition of Ritz-Carlton Hotels. He was also was an adviser in the sale of Hyatt Hotels throughout the country and represented Universal Studios in a joint venture with Loews Hotels for lodgings at the Universal theme park.

Shaffer's charities included UJA-Federation and the St. Thomas Aquinas School in the South Bronx, on whose board he served.

He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Kelly; three daughters from an earlier marriage, Andrea Collins of Bronxville, N.Y.; Dana Hayden of Purchase, N.Y.; and Stephani Wolff of Burbank, Calif.; a sister, Nicole Rothschild, of Oregon; and 10 grandchildren.