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Kenneth Munkacy
Kenneth Munkacy
Title: Senior Managing Director, Kingbird Properties
Experience: 25 years
Ken Munkacy leads newly established Kingbird Properties, the Boston-based U.S. subsidiary of Puerto Rican family conglomerate Grupo Ferré Rangel. Tracing its roots to the founding of the El Nuevo Dia newspaper in 1909, San Juan-based Grupo Ferre Rangel has expanded into the marketing, digital media and health care industries including a portfolio of apartment properties in the Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis metros. Kingbird Properties will continue that investment strategy, with plans to acquire 5,000 units in secondary and tertiary markets over the next two years. A former New Boston Fund executive, Munkacy most recently was a senior managing director at Boston-based GID Investment Advisers.
Q: So I heard you just got back from a trip to Puerto Rico. What were the conditions like post-Hurricane Maria?
A: It was humbling. I was touched by the people and their spirit which has not been diminished.Strangers helping strangers, people coming together and dealing with adversity. It’s almost like they were invaded. When we invaded people, the first thing we did was take out the roads and bridges and ports and power. That’s what Hurricane Maria did. One of the women in our office has to walk up eight floors in the dark (at her apartment) because she has no power. Our government really needs to step up. In the city you’ll see a building with its sides ripped off and then you’ll see a building that’s completely normal. One night it rained and within an hour, there was 10 to 12 inches of water in the streets because everything was backed up. I was also very touched by the FEMA workers. My hotel was a FEMA worker staging point and some of the stories were very powerful.
Q: What did you hear from the FEMA personnel?
A: One night I came back from dinner and Monday Night Football was on in the hotel lobby. I said, “I’m buying.” I bought them a round of beers and said, “What is CNN not telling me?” It was interesting to hear the stories and the bravery. There were kids from Indiana and Iowa and Texas small towns, almost like Peace Corps workers. I felt proud to be an American. One FEMA guy had gotten trapped in a mini-landslide and he was stuck. This woman and her kids came across this gully and literally dug the guy out. It was the FEMA guy who was trapped.
Q: What was the impetus for Grupo Ferré Rangel establishing a U.S. subsidiary?
A: The family is no stranger to the multifamily market. They’ve been doing investments for the last seven years in the U.S. and many decades before in Latin America. They have 2,000 units right now in the Midwest and wanted to make this a real strategy, a third leg of the company. Their core business is not real estate, it’s digital and newspapers and concrete. They think the next generation should have more of a presence in the North and South American real estate. Part of the objective here is to invest as a family office but also with other family offices they’ve known over the years.
Q: Why does Kingbird’s investment strategy focus on secondary and tertiary markets?
A: The reason is the better valuations. You don’t have the confluence of institutional and foreign buyers bubbling up prices, and you have many of the same demographics that are present in pricier cities. But also the focus is really on the workforce housing sector, and in those markets you have higher concentration on a per-capita basis and an underserved population. We’ll be in the $20 million to $70 million range. The strategy is to buy things that are too small for the institutions and therefore not bid up as high. Certainly we’ll take a look at the Boston suburban markets. Providence is an interesting town, and the suburban New York-New Jersey sphere.
Munkacy’s Five Biggest Guitar Influences:
- Joe Pass
- Jerry Garcia
- Peter Townsend
- Pat Martino
- Jimi Hendrix/Robert Fripp
