Idan Ofer, the Israeli shipping-and-energy billionaire crowned the wealthiest Israeli on the planet, is quietly rewriting the Manhattan skyline, one aging office tower at a time. His latest move involves a roughly $350 million deal to scoop up 845 Third Avenue, a 21-story, 350,000-square-foot slab of Midtown East real estate, with plans to gut it and reopen it as a 529-unit luxury rental building.

The acquisition is being executed through Ofer’s Quantum Pacific real estate arm together with Metro Loft, the Manhattan conversion specialist run by veteran developer Nathan Berman. To grease the transaction, the partners pulled an $88 million bridge loan out of Bank Hapoalim USA, the American commercial arm of the Israeli banking giant, yet another layer of Israeli capital woven into one of the biggest office-to-residential flips in New York right now. “New York is one of the most dynamic and significant real estate markets in the world,” BHI chief executive Gil Karni said of the financing, framing the tie-up as a match of “the right partners, capital and a clear vision.”

Over the past year, the 70-year-old Ofer has emerged as arguably the most aggressive new player in New York’s white-hot conversion market. Alongside Berman, he has stitched together a Manhattan portfolio that will churn out at least 1,400 rental apartments: 767 Third Avenue (337 units), the soaring 101 Greenwich Street (614 units), and a freshly inked $100 million contract for 1 Whitehall Street in the Financial District. Berman recently told The Real Deal he expects the Quantum team to keep buying, praising their “ability to move decisively, make smart decisions and have the wherewithal to do many more of these.” The timing is calculated. Office towers across Midtown have been bleeding value since the pandemic turbocharged remote work, while City Hall has been handing out tax incentives to anyone willing to turn those empty floors into badly needed housing, a gold rush that has doubled the conversion pipeline to more than 16,000 units in barely a year.

For Ofer, who Forbes this year estimated to be worth $34.6 billion, leapfrogging his older brother Eyal to become Israel’s top-ranked billionaire and the 61st richest person on earth, the Midtown bet is a striking reinvention. The Ofer fortune was built by their late father Sammy, a Romanian-born immigrant who arrived in Israel and assembled one of the world’s most powerful shipping empires from the decks of oil tankers and cruise liners. When Sammy died, the brothers reportedly divided the business by literally pulling names out of envelopes in front of their mother. Idan walked away with Israel Corp., fuel and power assets, and stakes in everything from chemical giants to Atlético Madrid. Real estate, by his own admission, never particularly interested him — until now.

Israeli money, Israeli banks, and Israeli operators are increasingly positioning themselves as anchor investors in a Manhattan market where the old guard is retreating. The 845 Third Avenue deal had originally been steered by the storied Rudin family, with construction financing from BDT & MSD Partners, before Quantum moved in late last year and took the leading stake. Now it is Ofer’s name, and Tel Aviv-rooted capital, carrying the project across the finish line. If the math works, the conversion will turn a fading 1960s office block into one of the largest new rental buildings in Midtown East, with Israel’s wealthiest man holding the keys.