Principals

Hornblower's professionals represent over 160 years of combined experience in asset management, fund placement, trading and capital markets, investment banking, private finance, law and research, medical, green and clean technology, with particular expertise in hedge funds, alternative assets, financial institutions, and private companies.

Ralph Hornblower III, Founder, Partner and Managing Director

A cum laude graduate of Harvard (AB,'70) and the University of Virginia Law School (JD,'74), Mr. Hornblower has had a diverse career in investment and merchant banking and as a practicing attorney. He joined the US Department of Justice immediately upon graduation from law school and first worked as a trial attorney in the Special Litigation Section of the Department's Civil Rights Division. Under Attorneys General Edward Levi and Griffin Bell, he was appointed to the office with authority to oversee all matters of ethics and professional responsibility throughout the Justice Department following the Watergate cases of the mid-1970's.

 

After a period of private practice, Mr. Hornblower began his career as an investment professional at Alex Brown & Sons (established in 1812) and at the Cape Cod Company (investment management and real estate development). In 1998 he resumed active management of  Hornblower & Company, LLC, legal successor to the Hornblower and Weeks name, and  which he founded as a family office  with his father after the Shearson acquisition of Loeb Rhoades Hornblower firm in 1979.  Ralph Hornblower, Jr., partner of Hornblower & Weeks (1951-1978) and his son Ralph, III  began a business development and family office firm, specializingin overseeing Hornblower family assets, and consulting and providing capital to early stage companies in health care, medical technology, energy, logistics, and green and clean technology, and now infrastructure projects.

 

Jeffrey B. Rotwitt, Partner and Managing Director

For over 35 years, Mr. Rotwitt has been practicing corporate and real estate law, first as a managing partner of a major Philadelphia firm and on his own as he pursues a myriad of entrepreneurial ventures.  He has extensive experience providing counsel to the nation’s most sophisticated firms, particularly in the areas of investments, joint ventures and real estate development.  He has been selected perennially by peers and professional organizations as one of Pennsylvania’s premier lawyers.

 

Mr. Rotwitt has a successful track record in various roles as sponsor, counsel or investor in many specialty or trophy real estate developments, private equity funds and start-up companies both entrepreneurially and through institutional investments.

 

The $100 million renovation of Philadelphia’s historic 30th Street Station containing 250,000 s/f of office and 30,000 s/f of retail was developed by Mr. Rotwitt.  He was instrumental in the development of (i) the $220 million 300 unit Hill at Whitemarsh, a continuing care retirement community, (ii) the $200 million Philadelphia Family Court, (iii) the one million s/f, 52 story Mellon Bank Center office building ($320 million) and (iv) the Sun Center Studios 33 acre campus of sound stages (40,000 s/f) and production offices (30,000 s/f) with 100,000 s/f of other ancillary buildings.  Mr. Rotwitt serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Sun Center Studios, America’s newest state-of-the-art entertainment and media facility in suburban Philadelphia which has hosted major Hollywood feature film productions.

 

Mr. Rotwitt also was a shareholder, director and counsel for Reading Energy, an energy company that developed cogeneration power plant projects in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania that totaled over $700 million of investment and produced double-digit returns to its investors.

 

The Mid Atlantic Real Estate Investment Fund, LP, a venture capital operating company investing private and pension fund monies in real estate ventures on a mezzanine and equity basis, was formed by Mr. Rotwitt as one of its original sponsors.

 

Mr. Rotwitt received his Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania and his Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Rotwitt also graduated from Penn’s School of Law, where he was awarded the degree of Juris Doctor. He has served as an adjunct professor at Penn’s School of Law teaching an interdisciplinary graduate course in entrepreneurship in collaboration with Penn’s School of Engineering.