Legendary retail broker, Jeff Winick, files for personal bankruptcy, citing $9.7M in back taxes, fines

By Adam Pincus

One of the city’s most influential retail brokers, Jeff Winick, the CEO and founder of Winick Realty Group, filed for personal bankruptcy last month, citing millions of dollars he says the government claims he owes in back taxes, far exceeding his assets.

In the filing, Winick claimed just $530,000 in assets but $9.7 million in back taxes and fines owned to the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.

Winick filed in the Southern District of New York, under Chapter 7, which calls for a sale of personal assets to pay off the taxes.

Winick’s professional life follows the exponential growth of retail in New York City. He founded Winick Realty Group in 1982 when retail was often an afterthought. But with an insight of the value of retail, close connections with rapidly expanding retailers such as Duane Reade, and the explosion of retail in new developments, he grew the firm, which today has 40 brokers and salespersons, according to an analysis of state records.

Winick is consistently one of the most active firms in the city. For example, last December, The Real Deal ranked Winick as the fifth most active retail brokerage in Manhattan, by square feet leased.

PincusCo Media reached out to Winick and his attorney for a comment, but did not receive a response.

Though a personal bankruptcy filing by a CEO of one of the city’s most powerful brokerages is unusual, there were foreshadowings in this case.

The Commercial Observer reported in 2018 that Winick was on a New York state list of alleged delinquent taxpayers, which reported at the time he owed $1.2 million in delinquent state taxes.

The bankruptcy filing claimed he owes $9.7 million in delinquent taxes and fines but only listed $530,000 in assets. The filing says he has no real estate property, no retirement savings, and very little in the way of any financial assets, other than leasing brokerage commissions due of $475,000, his largest asset.

The other main assets he listed were a 60 percent stake in WTN Realty Corp. and a 22.5 percent of Winick Realty Group. He did not assign a value to those assets.

His debts include $8.9 million owed to the IRS and $779,666 owned to New York state. He lists $122,800 in monthly income, and a $134,000 per month plan to repay the IRS and New York.

He reported that so far this year he has earned $982,329, and in 2019 he earned $2.7 million and in 2018 he earned $1.85 million. In addition, he has earned $120,000 so far this year from a company SDSDR111 LLC, located at the corporate offices of Shorewood Real Estate Group that owns a retail condo at 2864 Broadway on the Upper West Side occupied by a Duane Reade. The filing says his 24 percent stake in the company has been “attached, seized or levied.”

He also reported additional income last year of $403,993 and in 2018, $274,443.