The Founder

Five thousand miles away from Wall Street at his office in Honolulu, Jay Shidler had the brainchild for a new venture that landed him on the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange five years later, for the ringing of the opening bell. That’s when Primus Guaranty—the first-ever stand-alone derivatives product company—went public with an IPO in 2004; its AAA rating and practice of holding credit default swaps to maturity made the Primus business model unique. Even more unique, though, was its founder’s record of creating new companies and crafting new solutions in anticipation of emerging real estate and financial trends. It was Shidler’s third trip to the balcony.

Jay Shidler is a deeply involved, whiteboard-scribbling, numbers-crunching visionary who had the chutzpah early on to believe world-class real estate companies could be built from a remote location in the Pacific. His keen instincts date to his undergraduate years at the University of Hawaii, when a thesis he wrote formed the basis for a successful condominium project. It was also then that he began dispensing real estate advice in a column he penned for a prominent Hawaii business publication which described him as "one of the best-informed young men in his field." He was 22 years old.

Soon after college and upon fulfilling his commitment in the Army, Jay struck out on his own seeking properties with strong upside potential whose value he could maximize. To this day, the creation of value in real estate, for Jay Shidler, starts with understanding a set of complex, seemingly disparate circumstances and crafting a comprehensive solution that includes committing Shidler’s own capital to every venture. It’s a winning formula, elusive to most, that has kept him at the top of his game all these years.

From its single-man, single-office start in 1971, The Shidler Group now includes affiliated partnerships and corporations that have acquired and managed over 2,000 properties in 40 states and Canada. Jay Shidler has founded and been the initial investor in over 20 public and private companies, five of which have been listed on the NYSE.

While Jay’s success has been wild, his methods are not. His highly disciplined approach to incubating new concepts and capitalizing new companies is a mix of meticulous research and measured risk. A typical Shidler "frontloading" session starts out with a plethora of ideas and ends up with only a few; many of those that survive the brutal vetting process have been transformed into profitable, sustainable businesses.

Jay’s ability to assess risk is apparent not only in his businesses but also in his patents, awarded for a system of pricing financial instruments involving credit risk transfer. Shidler’s versatility—whether formulating complex probability models or structuring innovative transactions—demonstrates an uncanny combination of engineering and entrepreneurship.

The impact of Jay Shidler’s groundbreaking work has been recognized nationally throughout the industry and, as significant to him, much closer to home. Renamed in his honor in 2006, the Shidler College of Business at Jay’s alma mater, the University of Hawaii, is attracting top-tier students from around the world with its programs geared to today’s complex world marketplace—including a master’s degree in financial engineering.

One lasting lesson Jay Shidler has demonstrated is that business strategies must be formulated to be bulletproof. In Shidler’s world, a superior strategy is one that can survive imperfections in implementation, undulations of an unsettled economy, and any distance from its maker.