Jack Shaffer, Ex-Managing Director- Sonnenblick-Goldman, Dead At 73

NEW YORK— Jack Shaffer, a fixture on the hotel transactions scene for 30 years as an executive with Sonnenblick-Goldman, died August 18 from complications of kidney cancer. He was 73. A Chicago native, Shaffer joined the firm in 1970 as executive vp of Sonnenblick-Goldman Corp., CA, overseeing its Los Angeles office. In 1977, he moved to the firms corporate headquarters in New York where he then became a principal and managing director of the firm in its international lodging and leisure group. Prior to his tenure at S-G, Shaffer founded Dwinn-Shaffer, a Chicago, IL-based mortgage-banking firm. Shaffer, who left Sonnenblick-Goldman in 2000 to form his own Manhattan-based hotel investment company, Jack A. Shaffer and Co., specialized in hotel-property transactions with domestic and foreign investors and institutions, according to the firm, and completed more than $20 billion in real estate transactions. Benchmark transactions under Shaffer’s watch included: the $860 million Savoy Hotel Group acquisition by The Blackstone Group; the Marriott International purchase of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain, and the $1.5 billion Aoki and Robert Bass acquisition of Westin Hotels; the $243 million sale of the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco; and the arrangement of a $150 million equity investment for the development of three Loews properties— The Portofino Bay Hotel, The Hard Rock Hotel and the Royal Pacific Resort— at Universal Studios in Orlando “He was really known in the industry as the foremost expert in the finance and sale of hotel and resort properties,” Mark Gordon, managing director and principal, Sonnenblick-Goldman Co., told HOTEL BUSINESS®. Gordon worked with Shaffer for seven years at S-G, succeeding him when he left the company three years ago. “He was really my mentor in terms of all I know today,” said Gordon. In 2002, Shaffer was named “Man of the Year” by The Hotel and Hospitality Division of UJA-Federation of New York, earning the accolade for “his tireless support and invaluable guidance.” “He was really an interesting guy because his life and his work were interwoven,” said Gordon. “He was really just a great people person.” Shaffer earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Miami and a Juris Doctor degree from Northwestern University School of Law. He was a member of the board of directors of Guinness Peat Properties, Inc. and a governor and trustee of the Urban Land Institute. He is survived by his wife Kelly; three daughters and sons-in-law: Andrea and Tim Collins, Stephi and Jonathan Wolff, and Dana and Greg Hayden; a sister, Nicole Rothschild; and 10 grandchildren. A scholarship fund has been established in Shaffer’s memory. Donations made be made to: Jack A. Shaffer Scholarship Fund at St. Thomas Aquinas School, 1909 Daly Ave., Bronx, N.Y. 10460.