{"id":385,"date":"2022-05-11T06:45:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T06:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bravantefarmcapital.com\/?page_id=385"},"modified":"2022-05-13T17:47:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T17:47:27","slug":"gentleman-farmer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bravantefarmcapital.com\/education\/gentleman-farmer\/","title":{"rendered":"From Finance to Agriculture – The Story of a Gentleman Farmer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
“Soil, water, microclimate. Those are the basics of successful farming,” advises George Bravante, founder of Visalia, Ca.-based Bravante Farm Capital. “Then, lots of hard work, and applied industry knowledge. Plus, you have to buy right.”<\/p>\n
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Bravante pauses a bit, as if recalling a lesson so ingrained it is second nature, and not expressed out loud. “Oh, and proximity to services, to roads. You have to get produce to markets in a timely fashion,” he adds.<\/p>\n
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A rarity on the agri-business landscape, Bravante brings a usefully institutional real estate background to the farming trade, having first been involved in the financial and commercial property side of the industry.<\/p>\n
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Bravante grew up in New Jersey the son of mailman, and then earned an accounting degree at the University of South Carolina because “that was the cheapest university there was.”<\/p>\n
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After university, Bravante started as a foot soldier in what was then called “The Big Eight”-the largest accounting firms in the country-but his career quickly progressed. Bravante teamed up with a client, and soon began hatching property transactions with names such as Tom Barrack of Colony Capital and the Robert M. Bass<\/a> Group.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the savings and loan crisis hit the economy in the late 1980’s, and after some years in big-league property transactions, but not yet 30, Bravante was turned loose to oversee the American Real Estate Group which was the equally sized bad bank side of a failed savings & loan institution, American Savings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The bank had failed, and regulators split it into two parts, the good and the bad, each with $20 billion of assets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n George’s assignment brought him to Stockton, California, where he was quickly appointed President of American Real Estate Group, a combination of the bad side of American Savings and New West Federal Savings and Loan.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was another challenge and victory for Bravante, and the high-profile success story set him up to do most any sort of deal he wanted to do, in the sprawling worlds of finance and property.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “There was always that something in the back of my mind. I loved the finance business, but for me, being a ‘deal junkie’ for another 30 years was not a life,” recalls Bravante.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bravante, then married, wanted a place to raise a family, and by chance visited Napa Valley.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The fix was in, but this time not by Bravante, but on Bravante.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “You know, it’s hard not to like agriculture in Napa Valley because it’s beautiful and the food is good and the climate is good and everybody’s happy up there,” he explains, recalling his initial visit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Answering the ancestral siren as well as the call of the Napa Valley lifestyle, Bravante bought 20 raw acres the same week he first visited, to set up a wine-grape growing operation, thus joining the ranks of viticulturists. “And we have stayed here ever since,” he explains.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the decades went by, Bravante and business-partner and wife Nancy raised three sons, and multiplied their holdings 300-fold, branching into other crops as well as vertically integrating.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For all of the winnings, some career and family lessons are too deep to die: “We don’t have a lot of debt. We’re very under-levered on everything. So we’re kind of bulletproof,” explains Bravante.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Recessions or not, the Bravantes are not going to lose the family farm, or any other business venture, in future business cycles.<\/p>\n\t