Michael Levy is CEO of Crow Holding, a 75-year old real estate investment and development firm. Crow is the largest builder of multi-family apartment buildings in the United States. Previously, he worked in real estate finance and investment management at Morgan Stanley. Levy is currently a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, the Advisory Board at the Institute for Real Estate Operating Companies, and is an Urban Land Institute Foundation governor.

We discuss how a New York kid working on Wall Street was lured to Dallas to manage what is essentially a $30 billion dollar family office. He had met Harlan Crow, the patriarch of the family and son of the founder. The opportunity to focus on a variety of Real Estate related constituencies

Levy explains how he spent a year learning about the underlying business of family business focused on commercial real estate. The firm’s divisions include Crow Holdings Capital Funds, Crow Holdings Capital, Trammell Crow Residential, Crow Holdings Industrial, and Crow Holdings Office. The firm both developed and invests in commercial real estate.

He explains how Tramal Crow, in the post-war era, partnered with various affiliates across the country to develop commercial properties. The partnership included a 50/50 split of the profits, with Crow facilitating the financing. The firm flourished over the ensuing decades.

A list of his favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including the podcast extras on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, Bloomberg, and Acast. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Tom Rampulla, managing director of Vanguard’s Financial Advisor Services division since 2002. He runs the business that provides investments, services, education, and research to more than 1,000 financial advisory firms representing more than $3 trillion in assets.

Michael Levy’s favorite books

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Radical Leap: Cultivate Love, Generate Energy, Inspire Audacity, Provide Proof by Steve Farber

The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization by Arthur Herman

Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson