NEW ORLEANS – Black-owned financial services firm JECohen & Co., which is celebrating its seventh anniversary this year, has been steadily diversifying its wealth management offerings.
In 2018, JECohen Realty acquired 714 Canal Street in New Orleans. In 2021, the firm purchased 263 Third Street along with four other properties in Baton Rouge. After leading the seed round in 2019 for Flyguys Inc., a nationwide drone service based in Lafayette, JECohen recently participated in the company’s $4M Series A round.
“Keeping clients’ best interest as our ‘north star’ has sustained JECohen for the past seven years, and it will sustain us for the foreseeable future,” said Jarrett E. Cohen, the company’s principal and chief investment officer. “We broadened our investment platform into private markets such as real estate and venture capital private equity because we recognized that our clients would benefit from the diversification of their overall portfolio.”
A Louisiana State University grad, Cohen resigned from Merrill Lynch in 2015 to found his own business when he was just 27 years old. JECohen hired its first employee the next year and continues to expand its workforce. The pandemic, of course, brought unexpected challenges and opportunities.
“Our proprietary public equity strategies rebounded swiftly following the March 2020 stock market correction, and our largest stock position had one of its best years,” said Cohen. “The leasing environment for our real estate holdings has remained challenging, which certainly extended our timeline to stabilize certain properties, but our property values have interestingly all increased since inception.”
Cohen is president of the Historic Faubourg Tremé Association and a member of the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s Cornerstone Council. He served on the Crescent City Community Land Trust board of directors and was a trustee of the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority. For more information
