OUR TEAM
Ajaz spent almost 33 years on Wall Street. He started his career as an FX trader at Chase Manhattan Bank in 1985 and transitioned to FX Institutional Sales few years later. He left Chase in 1996 and joined Union Bank of Switzerland in New York as a Senior FX Salesperson. In 1997 he was recruited by Société Générale (SG), France’s second largest bank, to start up their FX Institutional operations in NY. In 2004 he was promoted to be the Head FX Sales and Trading for Europe and Asia. In 2005 he transitioned back to New York and resumed his previous position as Head of FX Institutional Sales for the US and stayed at SG till he retired in 2018.
Ajaz is a Principal in a group of entities that owns and operates multifamily, mix use and office buildings in New York.
In 2021, Ajaz and Shahid Jafri formed Jafri Group which is a private holding company that owns and controls the various entities owned by the Jafri Family.
Ajaz holds a BBA from St. John’s and an MBA from Pace University. He is married and lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.
Ajaz Jafri
Chairman
Mohammed Jafri, principal and co-founder of Jafri & Jafri, LLC, a New York Law Firm, is General Counsel to Jafri Group, LLC. Mohammed Jafri has over 30 years of experience in field of real estate, commercial transaction, and lender closings. Since 1989 Mohammed Jafri has represented major real estate sponsors, substantial business owners and numerous institutional lenders. Mohammed Jafri has BBA from Pace University, Real Estate Certificate from New York University, and J.D. from New York Law School.
Mohammed Jafri
General Counsel
Shahid Jafri
Founding Principal
Shahid grew up in a family involved in real estate and mortgage banking. Shahid ‘s father, Mohamed Jafri, has developed, owned and operated multi family, mixed use and residential portfolio in New York since 1980’’s. Shahid ‘s mother, Zahra Jafri, in 1990 founded owned and operated, as its President, a mortgage brokerage company. In 2004 Zahra co-founded Lynx Mortgage Bank LLC, a direct residential lender, and as its President guided Lynx through the 2008 financial crises and has grown Lynx into one of the most reputable mortgage banks in New York.
In 2018, Shahid founded Jafri Capital, LLC, a New York Based Commercial Real Estate Capital Markets Intermediary & Investment Firm
Shahid has established a valuable network of capital relationships including but not limited to: international and domestic family offices, offshore and onshore private equity and hedge funds, private lenders, investment banks, commercial banks, and high net worth individuals.
Prior to founding Jafri Capital, LLC, Shahid worked at a New York-based real estate investment company. Where the team successfully closed over $1 Billion. Shahid worked as a real estate investment banking analyst and associate, specializing in equity and debt placement. He was introduced to intermediaries and their business model at his first role at the internationally reputable TP ICAP, where he sat on the equity derivatives desk.
In 2021, Shahid founded JafCap which is a online digital commercial real estate capital markets platform and Jafri Journal, a digital media and news company covering the most relevant commercial and residential real estate content across the nation.
Shahid graduated from Fairfield University Dolan School of Business with a B.A. in Finance & Accounting and earned a diploma in Commercial Real Estate Financial Analysis & Modeling from NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate
John Holder
Senior Advisor / Partner, Jafri Capital, LLC
My name is John Holder, I live in Connecticut and had 40 years experience working in various positions with my Native American Tribe, the Mashantucket Pequot.
Mr. John Holder is one of the Founding Members of the Foxwoods Integrated Resort & Casino, which is the largest Resort Casino in the United States. Currently operating under roof more than 9,000,000 square feet. Mr. Holder has been an active tribal Member of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (MPTN) and has served them for over 40 years in a range of business development and construction capacities. He was there from the design and development all the way through ground up construction of the entire facility, including four first class resort hotels, gaming space, and a mall.
In my capacities I oversaw the development of our raw tribal land to a full blown tribal community of approximately 1,000 tribal members. Starting initially the construction of a 4k s/f hydroponic greenhouse as our first tribal revenue initiative to reservation utility and roadway infrastructure, a 100,000 gallon water tower and distribution system, tribal housing, community center, health facility, fire and police station, post office, recreation fields, community church.
In 1985 we won a legal case with the state of CT which allowed us to offer high stakes bingo games to the public. I worked along side an architect and contractors to open our 1800 seat bingo facility at a cost of $4mm on July 4, 1986. At the time this was monumental to our people. As chairman of the Bingo Commission in 1988 I received the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act 25 U.S.C. sections 2701, which is a United States federal law that establishes the jurisdictional framework that governs Indian gaming. I found the necessary loophole that opened the door and brought it to our tribal attorneys, and chased it up to the Supreme court and opened Foxwoods Resort Casino with 60,000 s/ft of table games and a few restaurants in 1992. In 1993 we proposed an annual share for the addition of slot machines and closed on an exclusive tribal-state agreement. In that same year we were adding a new casino Great Cedar with a 400 room hotel and a showroom and more restaurants and bars and retail. In 1997 we completed our Pequot Grand Casino and 825 room Hotel and completed our final Casino Fox Tower with an 826 room Hotel in 2008. Today we are still growing to reach other markets. We added a 400,000 s/ft Tanger outlet and we will complete a Great Wolf indoor and outdoor waterpark in 2024.
As Tribal Project Director I oversaw the phased construction of Foxwoods Resort consisting of over 9mm s/f from 1990 through 2008. I co-chaired the scope evaluation of the $750mm Fox Tower casino by evaluating what we were offering and what we needed to offer by soliciting focus group studies to evaluate what our customer wants were to increase our market share (marketing all age groups, mid- week attendance and enhanced live entertainment) and opened in 2008.
I took a hiatus in 2008 due to the recession and then returned as a project manager in Foxwoods Engineering in 2010 through 2019 and managed on time and within budget the rehab of a high level International casino, which I completed without closing or disrupting the casino operation. The complete rehabilitation of our 280 room hotel, Rebuilding restaurants, bars, lounges, retail, theaters, egress stairwells, HVAC, electrical, plumbing and drainage issues, medical facilities and the list goes on. This gave me an inside operational perspective of the staff and the customer needs for service, efficiency, longevity and easier maintenance.
I've learned to tailor design efforts to attract the market, to find what detail is necessary to make a project successful and to oversee the design effort to make the construction process easier and with fewer stones unturned in order to have better control of changes during construction.