In the financial capital of the world, an old player has planted an aggressive new flag. At its head is a familiar face.
Peapack Private Bank executives watched its peers exit the market — in part due to the collapses of three financial institutions — leaving the opportunity for the century-old bank to enter a new era. They went on a hiring spree, opened a new flagship and brought in Joseph Fingerman, a high-ranking executive at one of those failed banks, to lead its rapidly growing commercial real estate arm.
Courtesy of Peapack Private Bank
Peapack Private Bank Senior Managing Director and President of Commercial Real Estate Joseph Fingerman
Fingerman worked in the industry for over 25 years, 15 of which were at Signature Bank, so his Rolodex is dense. In the years since Signature ceased operations in 2023 — due to a bank run that took place in the days following the fall of Silicon Valley Bank — traditional banks slowed originations and new lenders began encroaching on their turf. In New York City, Peapack is one of them.
“There are clients that I really wanted at Signature that have already joined us at Peapack, but we never had them at Signature,” Fingerman said. “There are some that were Signature Day 1 and haven’t even moved their accounts yet, and I’m still going after them.”
“It’s sort of like hunting,” he added.
After serving as the senior vice president of Signature’s commercial real estate lending group and a brief stint at A&E Real Estate Finance, Fingerman joined Peapack in March 2025. He began closing new loans in May. He is on track to do $750M of deals 12 months later. He hopes to do the same, if not more, in the coming year.
Bedminster, New Jersey-headquartered Peapack has done business with the “who’s who of New York real estate,” Fingerman said, but that’s not necessarily its target. At Signature, Fingerman’s average loan size was roughly $5M.
“I want to do the right deals, and if there are no deals, I’m more than happy just to get paid on my current portfolio and not succumb to pricing pressures or erratics around loan to values,” Fingerman said. “I want safe loans for this so we can sleep at night for our depositors and for the bank.”
In the first quarter, Peapack closed nearly $139M in commercial real estate loans, almost triple the $47M it gave out in the first quarter of 2025, just before Fingerman got to work. The bank originated roughly $32M of multifamily loans, up from just $6.8M during the same period a year ago.
The bank’s balance sheet now holds $2.7B worth of commercial mortgages, up from $2.4B.
Besides its book, Peapack has grown its physical presence significantly. In March 2025, it opened a financial center at 300 Park Ave., making its presence known in New York City.
Around the same time that Fingerman started, Peapack added a new enterprise risk and compliance officer, chief audit executive and head of equipment finance. It also bulked up its CRE and wealth management teams and expanded to Long Island.
The bank now operates with more than 700 employees, with over 200 based in New York.
For his team, Fingerman is particularly bullish on retail, industrial and free-market multifamily in the metropolitan area.
He had held off on office deals up until the last few months, primarily to see what the city would be like under the new administration. Peapack has since begun issuing debt to existing clients and has been especially interested in office buildings in the suburbs.
Fingerman is not interested in hotels or self-storage. He’s largely stayed away from construction lending, although Peapack has originated a small number of loans in the space, creating a balance sheet of $576K that did not previously exist.
“It’s just very vanilla what we do,” Fingerman said. “But we do what we do very well, and we have a lot of repeat business.”
What Fingerman did at Signature could have also been described as vanilla, up until it wasn’t.
Signature was one of the largest lenders on rent-stabilized assets — a market where fresh capital has essentially evaporated. Of its $34B CRE loan portfolio, about $24B was in New York City and $11B was rent-stabilized.
The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 sent rent-stabilized buildings into a spiral, triggering distress in what was previously considered a safe sector of the market. Many landlords took out loans at values that assumed units could be removed from rent stabilization, until the HSTPA choked off that strategy. Signature was a lender of choice for this strategy.
Peapack has a $1.8B multifamily portfolio that spans Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Of that, 46% is both in New York and rent-regulated. Of the $846M total, $31.1M is nonperforming, according to the bank’s quarterly report. Most are legacy loans, managed by Fingerman.
Fingerman recently had a borrower threaten to hand over a rent-stabilized property to secure a better deal. The tactic didn’t work the way they planned.
“If you throw the keys at me, I’ll take them. I’m not afraid of that,” Fingerman said. “I’m more than happy to sell to the next-door neighbor or somebody else. We’re well-connected in the market.”
These troubled loans can fray relationships. Last year, L+M Development Partners sued Santander Bank for refusing to accept a deed in lieu of foreclosure for a Harlem building. The lender, which owns a 20% equity stake in a $9B former Signature portfolio, wanted to go after other, nonstabilized assets instead.
Fingerman said small policy changes, like allowing landlords to raise rents on warehoused units following renovations and then regulating the apartment from there, would help resolve troubled loans. At the same time, he doesn’t expect there to be a loan maturity “doomsday” and is open to finding a path for struggling borrowers.
“I’m not willing to roll over, but I am willing to work with them,” he said.
With increased competition from private credit players and the return of big banks to commercial real estate lending, it may seem like it would be difficult to grow as quickly as Peapack has. But those entities tend to chase after nine- or 10-figure loans, the kinds needed for data centers, Fingerman said.
But megabanks and private lenders aren’t necessarily filling the gaps that Signature, SVB and First Republic left.
“I always say to clients, ‘That’s great. You can bank with them all you want. Just go downstairs and ask them for a loan,’” Fingerman said. “Then that becomes a different conversation.”
