By a Correspondence
Chicago: Chicago based American Real Estate has achieved $20 Million in listing with no time. Its CEO, a prominent businessman, Hasan Merchant, beams with confidence when he talks of company’s success. Optimistic Hasan Merchant says: “Our firm provides business solutions for owners of hotels, shopping centers, office buildings and valuable commercial properties on a local and global scale.”
Hasan Merchant is popularly known in the community as a generous philanthropist and an eminent individual, who has supported all varieties of community organizations and their social functions.
Speaking to India Tribune, Hasan Merchant agrees that his previous construction empire went into bankruptcy because of the main reason being the drying up of resources of its big investors, whose investments elsewhere suffered because of downturn of the economy. And a group of small investors could not come up with additionally required money to complete the projects, which forced his construction business to go into bankruptcy. Many big businessmen have filed bankruptcy under unavoidable circumstances. That does not mean that they are not successful. Even Donald Trump filed bankruptcy and still is one of the most successful and respected businessman in the US.
Hasan Merchant says that he would not have launched the American Real Estate if he did not enjoy the confidence of his former colleagues, his bankers and the associates. “The banks with which we work have complete confidence in us. We also have become wiser with past experiences. One of them is not to put all eggs in one basket. Now we have no partners and no investors. I am investing. My company is mainly providing the brokerage services,” Hasan Merchant adds.
Speaking about his new venture, American Real Estate, Hasan Merchant stated that with a staff of eight professionals from real estate, marketing, accounting, and law, the American Real Estate is providing all help for its clients. “The banks with which we work have complete confidence in us. We also have become wiser with past experiences. One of them is not to put all eggs in one basket. Now we have no partners and no investors. I am investing. My company is mainly providing the brokerage services,” Hasan Merchant adds.
He said the company is helping clients with acquisitions, mortgage financing, and even with liquidating their assets. He says that one of his firm’s aims is to remove the “distress” tag from properties in order for normal market forces to operate. This cleans up assets, compromises liens, and settles foreclosure law suits for clients to obtain a clean title.
Hasan Merchant states that the sale of distressed properties is picking up, which he thinks will raise transaction volume for the year. American Real Estate estimates that there are 598 distressed commercial properties valued at $7.6 billion in the Chicagoland area alone. More local commercial property owners fell behind on loan payments in the first quarter, and the trend is expected to continue into next year as low occupancies and rentals push more landlords into financial difficulty.
Hasan Merchant, who has now resurrected himself from his past losses, exudes confidence when it comes to talk of American Real Estate. At American Real Estate, “We have very strong financial position backed and committed by various banks and bankers, who have complete confidence in our abilities and style of working. We have also gained a lot of experience and our clients have a lot of confidence in us.”
Talking of the “past experience” he says, that despite the adverse effects of the sliding economy, his company completed with no difficulty 8 of the 10 projects undertaken by it. “The remaining two also were later completed and sold. It’s a success after all,” Hasan Merchant adds.
Asked how he helps his clients, Hasan Merchant says, I am helping many people save their assets in these difficult economic times by helping them inject new capital. My business is to provide services and consultancy to restructure their businesses and ensure cash flow so that they stay in business and progress. My colleagues and I work mostly with banks, negotiate workable terms with them to help our clients to find solutions to their financial problems.”
He further says that any successful person has his share of jealous rumor-mongering. Un-eterred by such campaigns, Hasan continues to encourage, support and redress the grievances of his associates as well as employees, even the former ones.
Hasan assures that all the laws and rules are being followed to ensure utmost protection to investments and interests of the clients. All the investments have been done under the vigilant eyes of the law and as per the strong legal machinery that exists in the country.
Hasan says that commercial mortgage refinancing is also believed to be incredibly relevant to his firm’s business in 2012 due to there being over $1 trillion of commercial debt that is imminently seeking a new home. “We plan on making our commercial mortgage services known and scaled up in the coming years. Sales of commercial properties in Chicago jumped in 2011 for a second straight year. Recovery started very early in 2010 and we think we will continue to see capital flow into Chicago,” Hasan Merchant adds.
