Data centers to casinos, retired investor Ira Lubert says he’ll give until he’s dead — and after
One of Philly’s most successful investors, Ira Lubert says he relied on smarter partners.
When he turned 74 last year, Ira Lubert retired from the day job that had consumed him since the 1990s — raising more than $20 billion for the investment funds he set up with partners.
A top IBM salesman and former IT exec before he set up his constellation of investment funds, Lubert is rich enough to focus on investing what he’s kept and giving the profits away.
Lubert is a salesman, planner, and recruiter, not an investment genius, he said.
“The key is to always hire people smarter than you,” he said at his family investing office at the Battery, the former electric generating station on the Delaware River that his real estate group, Lubert-Adler Partners, renovated into hotel suites, offices, recreation sites, and apartments. It opened in 2023.
Those funds own or have financed hundreds of enterprises and properties around the U.S., including locally familiar Acme Markets, Five Below, and Philadelphia’s Aramark and Bellevue buildings. They have generated billions in net client profits, and a fortune in fees for Lubert and his partners, including hundreds of millions from his key early clients, Pennsylvania‘s state pension funds.
Lubert built a business renting trailers to Penn State varsity wrestlers and grad student couples, before graduating in 1973 with a hotel management degree.
After IBM, he spent the 1980s running big IT businesses, then the ’90s as top aide to Warren “Pete” Musser, Philadelphia’s best-known venture capitalist. He quit, Lubert said at the time, because he didn’t understand how to make money from the early internet (as it turned out, neither did Musser, or a lot of pro investors).
Instead of just trusting his gut, Lubert then partnered with real estate veteran Dean Adler, investment banker Seth Lehr, venture accountant Howard Ross, turnaround ace Greg Segal, and other experts to run his funds, while he focused on convincing state treasurers and other big investors to bet on their projects.
The funds include Lubert-Adler; LLR (military contractors and other private equity); LEM Capital (apartments); LBC Credit Partners (distressed debt); and bank, biotech, and other specialty enterprises, most of them owned by Pennsylvania’s pension funds since they started.
Lubert also invested separately from his funds, on what he considered riskier projects, like the Valley Forge Casino Resort. And he lost money, for himself and private partners, during the data center frenzy of the early 2010s, long before the current AI boom.
He was a Penn State trustee and chaired the board as his alma mater coped with the Paterno-era scandals, stepping down for the last time when he got a license to build the Happy Valley Casino near State College.
In retirement, Lubert oversees his family office, Belgravia Management LP, named for the Locust Street building he and his partners renovated as their first operating base. He also oversees his charitable foundations, with assets over $100 million, that give away profits to Penn State, University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson hospitals, Project HOME, Jewish causes, and other nonprofits. He relies on a veteran staff of seven, plus advisers such as Philadelphia trust lawyer Lester Lipschutz.
Lubert recently spoke with The Inquirer about his goals in retirement in light of his career. The conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Who drew you toward business?
My grandfather, Isidore Brody, was an immigrant from Romania. Age 18, he came through Ellis Island and went to his aunt in Newton, N.J. My father grew up there; he had an appliance-repair business. But with my grandfather, it was a lot of businesses. He had a butcher shop, a liquor store, a Sunoco station. He had apartments, the largest had nine units.
A couple days a week, I’d walk a mile to his house from school. He showed me a lot about business and real estate.
Pro investors like to call their shots. Why let your partners pick investments?
At age 47, my expertise was in raising capital. I wasn’t an engineer. I had tremendous respect for people [with specialized knowledge]. I wanted them to do their thing and then at a cocktail party they would be able to say ‘I founded Versa’ or ‘I founded LLR.’ Not ‘I work for Ira.’
I get recognized because my name came out in the different funds. And they got bigger.
Why did you buy high-return assets you didn’t put in clients’ funds?
Not all investments were appropriate for them. But when I did buy something personally, we had to bring it to the fund compliance people to make sure there wasn’t a conflict of interest.
You had a reputation for getting intense in meetings. Did you dial that back as you got bigger?
I don’t believe I have an aggressive style. I am focused and disciplined. I don’t deviate from a plan. I look for partners who are honest, ethical, committed, and capable.
Your son Jonathan is also an investor, now based in Florida. Will family members succeed you?
I have it set up so when I pass, my net worth will go to donor-advised funds and charitable foundations.
Philadelphia had big multi-company investors — the Fox brothers, the Perelmans, Ralph Roberts of Comcast. Did you learn from them?
They were brilliant business people and entrepreneurs. I’m really different from those guys. They each had a major operating business that they started, then they sold it and used the money to start their funds. I just started funds from the beginning [in the late 1990s] and partnered with top talent.
It was a great run. Now I really want to do this, while I have something left.