Coastal Investment Company

CEO Greg Meerbaum leads investment origination and strategy, supported by Chief Acquisitions Officer Carey Sobel and a management team that includes CFO Tyler Bloechinger, COO Keith Ahrens, and a roster of partners listed on the firm's website. Outside advisors — including Chad Bowling of Barwick Banking Company and Ken Carpenter of Madison Capital Group — provide deal-level input on banking and development exposures.

The firm uses a multi-layered sourcing model that combines a five-person site-analyst team, a dedicated acquisitions officer, and an advisory board of real estate developers and private equity investors. Coastal also runs an in-house media operation and explicitly markets to accredited investors through its investor relations team, suggesting that some deal flow comes from operators seeking capital from Coastal's distribution network.

Coastal is an asset manager structured as a private equity firm, not a single-family office. It raises capital from external accredited investors for individual real estate and venture capital placements. The firm discloses that its executives invest personally alongside clients but does not claim to manage a single-family pool of assets.

Based on the firm's own disclosures, it structures opportunities as single-asset and multi-asset placements rather than blind-pool fund commitments. The website lists specific project sites, which points to a deal-by-deal syndication model rather than pooled fund investing.

The firm focuses on demand-driven asset classes in the US Southeast: multifamily, self-storage, build-for-rent, boat and RV storage, last-mile industrial, essential retail, gas stations, hospitality, assisted living, and distressed assets. Its venture capital arm, Coastal Ventures, adds manufacturing, software, technology, healthcare, data storage, and energy and renewables.

Coastal operates almost entirely through co-investment relationships, sharing equity on its project sites with operating partners such as Madison Capital Group and Empire Group. Its executives and partners are not the sole equity owners of the assets in the portfolio, as the firm explicitly notes on its website.

Coastal runs an in-house construction company, Benco Commercial, that provides estimating, project management, and superintendent services for its development pipeline, functioning as a captive general contractor. The firm does not currently disclose a separate philanthropic foundation.