Black Keel Capital — Structural capital for commercial real estate

The Firm

Structural capital for commercial real estate.

Most capital in commercial real estate has never stood where the sponsor stands. We have. Black Keel finances structure for well-sponsored real estate — assets in transition, and stabilized assets facing a financing moment: a maturity, a recapitalization, a partner coming or going. We start at the bottom of the capital stack and work our way up.

Built for the upwind days

Built for the part of the cycle that sorts disciplined capital from the rest — when financing is scarce, values uncertain, and structure matters more than story.

We've signed the guarantees

Billions of dollars of real estate sponsored as principals — acquisition and development — with personal guarantees behind it. We know the weight of the borrower's chair because we've sat in it with our names on the line; that, not size, is our edge.

“Calm sailing doesn’t come from calm waters; it comes from having a good navigator, a good crew, and a good vessel.”

— Anthony T. Hincks

The Name

Why Black Keel.

In sailing, the keel makes a vessel seaworthy — the spine the ship is built on, the ballast that holds it upright when the wind is hardest against it. The truest test comes on the upwind days, when progress is earned, not given. Markets, like weather, aren't always favorable — and the upwind legs are the ones we built Black Keel for. When other capital heads for harbor, a crew earns its keep.

The word black is deliberate — the color of restraint, and the most demanding hull to keep, rewarding only meticulous, unrelenting care. That is the standard we hold in our underwriting and our stewardship.

Sailing is the purest alignment we know: a crew agrees on the destination before leaving the dock, then pulls toward it together. We hold our partnerships to that standard — as people who have been owners, not only lenders.

What We Do

Full stack, by design. Most credit shops occupy a single rung; we think in whole capital structures — and we start at the bottom and work up, because the senior loan is the piece that has to be right before anything above it makes sense. Senior secured bridge is what we are deploying today; mezzanine, preferred equity and selective co-investment extend the platform as our balance sheet scales. The creativity to structure across the stack is what makes us a better partner: one counterparty, not three with three agendas. And every decision is made by principals who have sponsored billions across acquisition and development — we know headwinds firsthand, and like a good crew, we know how to trim to them and turn them into forward motion.

Credit & Structured Capital

The bottom of the stack, where we are deploying today: senior secured first‑mortgage loans of $5M to $20M against standing, income‑producing property at a financing moment — a maturity, a business plan a bank cannot underwrite yet, a lender simply out of room. We price to value we can defend.

Every loan is underwritten to the downside first, with two credible exits identified before a dollar is committed. We stay close for the life of the deal, because when the sponsor wins, we do.

To the sponsor, we are crew, not cargo — aboard the same boat, pulling toward the same destination.

Further Up the Stack

Mezzanine, preferred equity and selective co‑investment alongside operators we believe in are how the platform extends as our balance sheet scales. We are glad to be brought into those conversations early, with the honest caveat that senior secured bridge is what we are writing today.

A firm prepared to stand further up the stack underwrites the senior loan the way an owner would — because it has asked what happens to every dollar above it. That is what principals first, lenders second means in practice, and it is why we are building toward it deliberately rather than advertising it early.

We name our position openly with the sponsor, at the outset — agreed when the destination is set. We would rather tell you today what we cannot do than discover it together in week three.

For Brokers

Bring us the deal that needs a lender who’s been an owner.

Most of our lending begins with an intermediary. We built Black Keel to be the lender you want in your deal — a clear box, a fast and honest answer, and terms that hold at the closing table.

Senior Bridge

$5M – $20M

Collateral

Standing, income‑producing commercial real estate

Term

12–36 months, transitional and bridge

Asset Types

Multifamily, industrial, self‑storage, net‑lease retail, mixed‑use

Markets

Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado — occasionally adjacent markets where we know the sponsor

Leverage

Up to 70% LTV and 75% LTC, with sponsor cash equity of at least 25%

Download the box (PDF) — the same criteria, for your files and your clients.

What falls outside our box

We are a senior secured lender against standing, income‑producing real estate. We do not finance ground‑up construction, land, single‑family residential, senior living, or mobile home parks, and we are not currently active in office or hospitality.

Ground‑up development is a deliberate, sequenced expansion for us rather than a capability gap — construction is gated behind a dedicated draw‑administration and construction underwriting function we intend to build properly rather than improvise.

We lend to experienced sponsors with completed, comparable projects. We do not lend to first‑time sponsors.

A straight answer in two business days

Send us a deal and you’ll have an honest answer — it fits and here’s what we need next, it doesn’t and here’s precisely why, or here’s the one thing we can’t decide without. Not a maybe, and not silence. Nobody spends money on title, survey or third‑party reports until the structure and sponsor questions are settled — not our money and not your client’s.

Your client stays your client

Your fee is respected and papered. Your relationship is protected — we don’t go around the people who bring us business. Crew, not cargo applies to intermediaries too: the brokers who work with us make money with us again.

Submit a deal Twelve questions, about three minutes. No login. Or email michael@blackkeel.com.

Your fee is respected and papered, and if we transact with your client, you are in the deal. We don’t go around the people who bring us business.

Our Approach

Respect the conditions. Carry the ballast.

Sailing teaches the lessons good investing requires: respect the conditions you cannot control, prepare for the weather you hope not to see, and carry enough ballast to hold your line when it turns. Nothing matters more than alignment — a crew that disagrees on the destination is in trouble before it leaves the harbor, so we settle that first.

We underwrite conservatively and would rather miss a deal than misjudge one. We treat investor capital as held in trust, not deployed for its own sake.

The terms are table stakes — anyone can quote a rate. What we bring is harder to find: a partner who has carried the weight you carry, steadiest in the upwind days.

This is unglamorous work, and we prefer it that way. The keel is never the part anyone admires. It is simply the part that gets you home.

“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”

— Aristotle Onassis

Leadership

Built by a principal who has done the work.

Michael Slavin

Founding Partner

More than two decades in private equity and real estate. He began in M&A at Platinum Equity, then completed more than $2.7 billion of real estate acquisition and development as an executive and principal — at Weintraub Real Estate Group in Los Angeles, RAD Ventures in Venice, California, and Accomplice Group. After 2009 he founded a data-enabled non-QM lending platform — backed by QED Investors and Spark Capital — that became one of the largest non-QM lenders in the country. Having built and owned, he underwrites from the borrower's side, not only the lender's. He runs Black Keel from Boise, Idaho.