Merrill Kaliser, Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Merrill graduated from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis in 1999, where he subsequently joined Gardere as a corporate bankruptcy and restructuring lawyer. After four years of extensive experience in some of the largest bankruptcies and workouts in the history of the U.S., Merrill left Gardere for a boutique firm that had focused on commercial real estate restructuring and workouts. In 2008, Merrill became a sole practitioner where his primary practice area was corporate, real estate, and creditor representation. Merrill’s law firm (www.kaliserlaw.com) has represented over 700 multi-family transactions/syndications nation-wide valued at over $1.9B.
Also, in 2008, Merrill co-founded Longhorn III Investments LLC (www.longhorninvestments.com). The company quickly became the premier hard money lender on non-owner occupied single-family properties in the state of Texas. Two years later, Merrill co-founded Trident Realty Investments LLC, a 506 Reg D fund that became the main funding source for Longhorn III, providing $50M in capital.
In 2012, Merrill formed Longhorn IV Investments LLC to co-venture with Building and Land Technology (BLT), a large privately held real estate developer, manager and private equity firm (www.bltoffice.com). Longhorn and BLT jointly bought, rehabbed, leased, and property managed over 950 single family rentals. During this time, Merrill developed a proprietary software platform for acquisition and construction management, and founded the property management company Lone Star 4 Rent (www.lonestar4rent.com). In April 2015, the portfolio was sold at a significant profit to a large private Canadian real estate group. At the time of sale, the portfolio was valued at $105M.
In late 2016, Merrill co-founded (together with Joe Pagano) and became the CEO of US REVI, a vertically integrated service and real estate investment platform for private equity investors. US REVI has helped build, operate, and sell thousands of homes for its investors. Today, US REVI is servicing and operating single family rental homes for multiple institutional and private equity groups.
From 2016-2018, US REVI originated, rehabbed, leased, and eventually facilitated the sale of 1,400 SFRs for Ovation Partners, a $700M private equity firm based in Austin. This portfolio was valued at over $200M and generated a substantial gain at sale.
Merrill continues to have a thriving law practice which primarily focuses on corporate structure and multifamily and commercial real estate syndications. In addition to his J.D., he holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Texas in Austin.
Jeff Satz, Chief Operating Officer
Jeff began his career at Nortel Networks, where he held several positions in the Research and Development area focused on Quality Assurance and Project Management.
While at Nortel, he received Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI) and; also, his Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSS-BB) certification while focused on product efficiency and cycle time reductions resulting in $250M annualized savings.
In 2010, Jeff joined Ericsson as a Senior Manager in the Release Management Team. In this role, he was responsible for representing the entire R&D team for Ericsson’s CDMA product releases. Focus areas included budget planning for their $20M program, portfolio prioritization and execution, workforce planning, and risk management strategies.
In early 2013, he transitioned to lead process improvement teams and initiatives for Ericsson’s North American Region. In this role he built a team to monitor and report region-wide improvement projects that contributed cost savings to Ericsson’s bottom line. Not limited to just improving visibility and performance, he pushed for the investment in their analytics and business intelligence development in the improvement area. He also created the foundation for the region’s Business Process Management Center of Excellence focusing on business process optimization and automation.
In January of 2016, Jeff joined US REVI in the dual role as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer. In addition to being responsible for day-to-day operations, he utilizes his R&D background to solidify the company’s technology and business intelligence strategies. This includes developing cutting edge software for acquisition, rehabbing, leasing, and automation of almost every daily task.
Jeff attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy NY, and holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering.
Pratima Sharma, Chief Analytics Officer
Pratima and Bhuvan Sharma, as Managing Partners of 7Seas Holdings LLC, a Dallas-based real estate firm, have accumulated extensive experience with multifamily acquisition, construction, operations, and property management. Together, they have successfully led six multifamily syndications with 1,042 combined apartment units, as well as a resort property. Since 2013, they have also invested passively in 16 additional multifamily transactions with a total of over 3,000 apartments.
Prior to focusing on real estate, Pratima and Bhuvan had successful corporate careers in financial services, technology, utilities, and telecom. From their combined 50+ years in corporate America, they bring to bear their background in program management and audit & compliance to efficiently manage multifamily real estate assets. Beyond their technical know-how, Pratima and Bhuvan are skilled at managing the cross-functional teams required to generate strong returns from rental properties, including brokers, lenders, attorneys, tax professionals, and a robust property management team.
Pratima has received a B.Sc. in Computer Science degree along with specialized telecom technology and project management certifications. She was awarded a patent related to IP telephony.
Bhuvan Sharma, Chief Data Officer
Pratima and Bhuvan Sharma, as Managing Partners of 7Seas Holdings LLC, a Dallas-based real estate firm, have accumulated extensive experience with multifamily acquisition, construction, operations, and property management. Together, they have successfully led six multifamily syndications with 1,042 combined apartment units, as well as a resort property. Since 2013, they have also invested passively in 16 additional multifamily transactions with a total of over 3,000 apartments.
Prior to focusing on real estate, Pratima and Bhuvan had successful corporate careers in financial services, technology, utilities, and telecom. From their combined 50+ years in corporate America, they bring to bear their background in program management and audit & compliance to efficiently manage multifamily real estate assets. Beyond their technical know-how, Pratima and Bhuvan are skilled at managing the cross-functional teams required to generate strong returns from rental properties, including brokers, lenders, attorneys, tax professionals, and a robust property management team.
Bhuvan holds Executive MBA and M.Sc. in Information Systems degrees. He is a Six Sigma Green Belt and has obtained various technical certifications in his field.
Cindy Mirliss, Chief Legal Officer
She was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts and moved to Dallas, Texas with her husband. She attended Boston University for her undergraduate degree and received her Juris Doctorate from Texas A&M University School of Law in 1995. She has worked for several of the largest firms in Dallas, including Baron & Budd, Jones Day, and McKool Smith, as well as in house counsel for Stream Energy. Her career has given her experience in several practice areas including real estate acquisitions, class action litigation, contract and employment law, mergers and acquisitions, family law, and estate planning.
In 2015, she joined Kaliser & Associates as Lead Counsel. Cindy’s practice focuses on assisting clients with commercial real estate transactions, private securities fundraising, SEC syndications for multi-family projects as well as other commercial and real estate related projects, and wills and estate planning. Cindy has negotiated and prepared 100s of multifamily syndications throughout the country including contract negotiations, syndications, due diligence, SEC and Blue Sky filings, Title and Lender due diligence as well as closing services.