Leonard Grunstein

Leonard Grunstein (born July 18, 1952) is an American finance executive, retired lawyer and philanthropist. Grunstein practiced law for over 35 years and is now a Managing Member of Hanlen Real Estate Development & Funding LLC and Hanlen Healthcare Development & Funding LLC. He has also served as Managing Member of Fundamental Long Term Care Holdings LLC since 2006.

In 2001, he founded Project EZRAH, where he serves as Chairman.

Early Life and Education

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1952, Leonard Grunstein moved to New York in 1958.^[1] He would earn a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Queens College,^[2] graduating Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1972.^[1] Grunstein went on to Brooklyn Law School, where he earned his J.D. in 1975.^[3] The following year, he was admitted to practice law in New York.^[4]

Career

Law

Grunstein began his law career after graduating law school in 1975.^[2] He was an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of New York and Counsel to the Mayor’s Midtown Office of Development and worked as an associate at Herrick, Feinstein LLC, becoming a partner in 1980.^[1] Grunstein served as an Adjunct Professor of law at Cardozo Law School, teaching Co-op and Condominium Law.^[1] Upon leaving Herrick, Feinstein in 2002, Mr. Grunstein joined Jenkens & Gilchrist as a senior partner, where he negotiated the conversion of the Ruppert Yorkville Towers.^[1][5] In 2005, he joined the international law firm Troutman Sanders as a senior partner, becoming Head of the Real Estate Capitalization Group.^[6]

Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village

In 2006, Grunstein was retained as a lawyer for the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association. Grunstein focused on developing the structure and financing package that would help tenants buy the complex and keep their apartments affordable.^[7] On October 21, 2009, the Court of Appeals ruled that Tishman Speyer, the owner of the complex, had no right to take the apartments out of the rent stabilization program.^[7] Grunstein had uncovered an “arcane” rent rule that did not allow an owner to take apartments from rent stabilization while also receiving a tax break for renovations, called the J-51 Program. Stuyvesant Town owners had been doing so for years.^[7] Grunstein’s work earned him recognition in New York Times real estate reporter Charles V. Bagli’s book published in April 2013, Other People’s Money: Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made.^[8]

Business and Finance

Integrated Health and Mariner Care purchases

Grunstein has been involved in the acquisitions of a number of health care providers in the skilled nursing and long-term care industries. In 2003, Integrated Health Services Inc., a bankrupt nursing home operator, was acquired by Abe Briarwood Corp. with financial sponsorship from Cammeby’s International Ltd., a real estate investment firm that Grunstein advised.^[9][10][11] In 2004, Mariner Health Care, a long-term care operator based in Atlanta, announced that it had entered into a merger agreement with National Senior Care. NSC, through its affiliates at the time, controlled more than fifty long-term health care facilities throughout the country.^[12]

A qui tam lawsuit was filed by Adam B. Resnick under the False Claims Act against nursing home pharmaceutical supplier Omnicare, Mariner Health Care Inc. and SavaSeniorCare Administrative Services alleging that Mariner and Sava had solicited kickbacks in exchange for Omnicare’s pharmacy service. Leonard Grunstein, who assisted in the acquisition of Mariner in 2004 and later co-owned SavaSeniorCare, was also named in the case.^[13][14] Omnicare settled this and a number of other unrelated claims in a global settlement, in which it denied any wrongdoing and paid $19.8 million to this case. In February 2010, after SavaSeniorCare and Grunstein filed a motion to dismiss, a settlement was reached. Under the Settlement Agreement, which acknowledged that the defendants denied the allegations and any wrongful conduct, the case was dismissed, no payment was made to the government by Grunstein, or Sava, and no regulatory or other action was taken against him or Sava.^[15] Troutman, Sanders (the law firm where Grunstein was a partner), issued its own statement confirming the foregoing.^[16]

In 2005, Businessweek reported that Grunstein worked in the acquisition of the publicly traded Beverly Enterprises, Inc., a large nursing home operator.^[17]

Grunstein is currently a Managing Member of Fundamental Long Term Care Holdings LLC, a firm that, through its subsidiaries, operates approximately 100 healthcare facilities.^[18] He is also currently a Managing Member of Hanlen Real Estate Development & Funding LLC and Hanlen Healthcare Development & Funding LLC.

New York Federal Savings Bank and Metropolitan National Bank

Grunstein was a founder of the New York Federal Savings Bank in 1990 and the Metropolitan National Bank in 1999, where he served as Chairman of the Board.^[1] He also served as Chairman of the Board of the Israel Discount Bank of New York from 2006 to 2007.^[19]

Philanthropy

In 2001, Grunstein founded Project EZRAH, a non-profit organization based in Bergen County, New Jersey.^[20] EZRAH aids families suffering from the hardships of unemployment, offering job search help, financial aid and emotional support.^[20] Grunstein has served as Chairman since it’s founding.^[21] Grunstein has also served on the boards of several other non-profit organizations, including the American Friends of the Jerusalem College of Technology and the Genesis Jerusalem Institute.^[22] He is also on the Board of the Revel Graduate School at Yeshiva University.^[23]

Honors and Awards

With fellow members of Troutman Sanders, Grunstein was recognized as a “Super Lawyer” by Law & Politics in 2006.^[6] Mr. Grunstein was named an “AV Preeminent” lawyer by Martindale-Hubbell, recognizing his high ratings in legal ability and ethical standards.^[2] He has also published articles in The Banking Law Journal.^[24][25] including an article on the "contemporary application of Jewish laws regarding the taking of interest."^[26]

Personal life

He is married to Chana Tambor Grunstein.^[27] They have three children: Eli, Michal, and Rachel, all graduates of Yeshiva University.^[27]

References