Off-the-radar capital sources are Bralower's secret weapon.

When he isn't counting the $10 billion of debt, equity and corporate financing deals he's completed over his career, Carlton Advisory Services managing director, John Bralower, is counting his blessings.

A New Yorker born and breed, Bralower has found himself in the enviable position of being able to indulge his passions for travel and architecture while fulfilling his lifelong business ambitions.

"My parents always told my brother and I to focus on what we liked and I was always interested in architecture and buildings. At some point, I figured out real estate was a career where you could combine those interests and make a good living."

While his brother pursued what would become a successful career in record producing, Bralower graduated from George Washington University, and then went on to Fordham Law School.

He wound up working at the National Advertising Review Board where a meeting of high-powered executives gathered to discuss the consistency of rival mayonnaise brands was enough to convince him advertising law was not the path he was meant to follow.

He recalled, "The Review Board regulated truth and accuracy in advertising and I remember attending a meeting at the offices of some ad agency in the Chrysler Building with executives from [two rival mayonnaise companies] who were arguing over claims that one mayonnaise was smoother than another. These highly paid executives were sitting scooping mayonnaise under different lighting conditions to see which was really smoother and whether the advertising claims were misleading. I thought, 'This interesting, but not where I am going with the rest of my life.'"

Bralower decided to take a position with Vrickell Associates, then an affiliate of Sonnenblick Goldman. One of his first deals was financing the acquisition of the Scribner Building at 597 Fifth Avenue for the Cohen family, owners of the Duane Reade chain, in the early 80s, and helping the new owners with a leasing campaign to bring new tenants to the landmarked building. He worked on the deal to lease the Scribner book store space to Rizzoli, which had been displaced from its retail space on Fifth Avenue to make way for 712 Fifth Avenue where, coincidentally, he moved Sonnenblick's headquarters several years later.

When Brickell spun off from Sonnenblick, Bralower moved over to Sonnenblick as a vice president of the firm and set about making a name for himself in the world of international hospitality financing.

"We were doing a lot of business in Asia and Europe and I would travel there frequently bringing capital to the US. There was a lot of interest in hotels at that time and particularly Japanese investors looking at Hawaii."

In what would become one of many transactions he would negotiate with the Four Seasons hotel chain, and which would see his career come full circle, Bralower arranged an equity deal between a developer and the lodging giant for what would ultimately become the Four Seasons Hualalai, a successful resort which ultimately came on the market last year.

Acting on behalf of an investment group led by Ty Warner, the mastermind behind the Beanie Babies phenomena, and Bentley Forbes, Bralower was raising debt and equity for a possible acquisition. But success was not his to taste second time around when, as he likes to remember, his group lost out to a bigger billionaire and Michael Dell and his Rockpoint advisors won the bidding.

The fact that the numbers involved in the deal had risen from somewhere around $90 million when Bralower first handled the property to somewhere north of $400 million when Dell purchased it, is an indication of the unprecedented levels of appreciation such assets have achieved in recent years and, consequently, the effect that has had on the escalation of both the stakes and complexity involved in raising the capital required to finance transactions in today's market.

Brawler was not only witness to this acceleration, but kept pace by developing an international network of sources he could tap that would ultimately lead to his success as a major player in the equity markets.

His ability to successfully resolve complex deals grew in line with the companies for which he was acting, companies like Maritz Wolfe, which along with Eastdil's Larry Wolfe, he helped complete some of its earliest acquisitions.

By 2000, Bralower had become a founding investor in stock market analysts, StarMine Corp. Although now ranked among the 500 fastest growing firms in the US, the firm's initial development faltered when the Internet boom petered out and Bralower began looking to broaden his horizons further.

After 16 years at Sonnenblick, he was approached by the global real estate investment banking firm, Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin. Under the misguided impression that a downturn in the market was looming, Bralower decided to join what was then one of the nation's biggest restructuring firms in anticipation of an impending need from owners seeking fresh capital and sales of distressed properties.

When that didn't happen, he threw himself into founding the North Shore Land Alliance on Long Island with a vision of creating lower density developments that would preserve land and protect the environment while improving the economics of a deal.

While there is no doubt he had the smarts to make that work, fate intervened when he was introduced through a mutual friend to Howard Michaels, Carlton's chairman, who was fresh off arranging financing for the $1.4 billion GM Motors building acquisition by Harry Macklowe. Michaels invited him to get on board and grow the firm's hotel and international practice and, in 2004, he joined the company as it rose on a wave of high-profile deals that included the biggest apartment transaction in history. Together with Michaels and Carlton partner, Michael Campbell, he arranged the equity and debt financing for the $850 million acquisition of Manhattan House.

It was a challenging deal in that the team had a very short amount of time to find an equity partner and arrange the debt, but one which was completed from a template Carlton has perfected that has helped the firm build a reputation for coming up with what Bralower calls "off the radar capital sources."

"We spend a lot of time, money and effort cultivating relationships throughout the world and coming up with these capital sources," Bralower said.

Just recently, Bralower brought in a group of Norwegian investors for one of several deals he's handled for Kent Swig in Lower Manhattan.

"The Norwegians had never done a real estate deal in the US but, with Oslo ranked among the most expensive cities in the world, this looked like an inexpensive investment to them, a bit like the way the US looked to the Japanese in the 1980s."

Indeed, with the debt markets becoming more of a commodity business, Carlton has carved a niche for itself in the highly lucrative and decidedly complex equity markets. They firm has been tapped by Donald Trump to arrange financing for his newest SoHo hotel project and is working on hotel deals with Belfonti Capital and the Mandarin Oriental in Orlando, Florida and, of course, Bralower continues to cultivate his international network.

"At Carlton, we focus on big transactions and what we do best is raise equity. It is a very good fit for me because it highlights my talents and utilizes my contacts overseas."

And, of course, it allows him to continue to trek the globe which, being married to travel writer Naomi Black, is a good thing.