How Jeff built the fortune
Jeff Greene began accumulating wealth in property long before the investment that made him famous. In the 1980s and 1990s he bought apartment buildings and other residential properties in Southern California, often purchasing when prices were depressed and holding for the long term. He built a sizable portfolio of rental units and commercial property in the Los Angeles area.
The defining trade came in 2006 and 2007. Concerned that the housing market he knew so well had become dangerously inflated, Greene used credit default swaps to bet against securities backed by subprime mortgages. When the housing bubble burst and those securities lost much of their value, the bet paid off on a very large scale. The episode was later described in books and articles about the investors who anticipated the financial crisis.
After the crisis Greene shifted much of his attention to Florida. He has acquired and developed property in Palm Beach County, especially in West Palm Beach, where he has built office and residential towers and invested in the redevelopment of the downtown area.
Greene's success with the subprime trade was not simply luck. As a landlord and buyer of residential property he watched lending standards loosen and prices rise faster than rents, and he concluded that many borrowers would be unable to keep up with their payments once teaser interest rates reset. He arranged the swaps through major investment banks at a time when relatively few individual investors were taking that kind of position, and he kept the positions open even as the cost of maintaining them mounted before the market broke.
Companies and holdings
Greene's main holdings are real estate, held through a group of private companies. They include:
- apartment buildings and other property in Southern California, especially Los Angeles
- office, residential and hotel developments in West Palm Beach and Palm Beach
- a resort property in Palm Beach and other hospitality assets
In West Palm Beach he has been one of the most active private developers of the past decade, assembling sites near the city's waterfront and downtown. He has also held portfolios of financial investments and has pursued projects in other parts of Florida. His companies are privately owned and publish limited financial information.
Greene has also made investments outside property, including in hotels and in stakes in operating businesses, and his family holds substantial land in Palm Beach County where future projects are planned.
Early life and career
Greene was born in 1954 in Worcester, Massachusetts. His family's finances were modest, and he worked as a busboy and in other jobs while growing up. He studied at Johns Hopkins University and then earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
After business school he moved to California and began buying properties, starting small and expanding as values rose. He has described his approach as buying during downturns, a pattern visible in both his early apartment purchases and his later Florida acquisitions. Throughout his career he has worked mainly as a principal investing his own money rather than as an employee of a large firm.
His wealth has drawn attention in both business and political circles because of its sources. Supporters see a disciplined contrarian who read the housing market better than most professionals; critics during his campaigns argued that profiting from the mortgage collapse sat uneasily with his political message. Greene has responded that he anticipated a crisis that others ignored.
Philanthropy and public life
Greene entered politics in 2010, running in Florida's Democratic primary for the United States Senate. He spent heavily on the campaign but lost the nomination to Kendrick Meek. He returned to politics in 2018, entering the Democratic primary for governor of Florida, and again did not win.
He and his family support charitable causes in Palm Beach County, including education and community programs, through family foundation giving. Greene has also funded civic initiatives and has written and spoken about economic inequality and the role of government in supporting the middle class. His public profile in Florida is shaped largely by his development projects and his political campaigns.