Dreams of High Returns in the US Shattered by Reality
Investors in the Rilco investment company are facing capital losses after an Ohio office building was sold for $2 million, down from its $17 million purchase price. This marks another chapter in the firm's ongoing financial difficulties.
At the beginning of last week, investors in the investment company Rilco received an email with rather bitter news. In the message, sent by the Israeli real estate developer operating in the US, Tomer Hai, it was stated that an office building in Ohio named "Eastpoint" was sold for $2 million, after the company had purchased it for investors five years earlier for $17 million. The party that won the rights to the building was the lending bank, meaning the one that provided the financing to the dozens of investors in this specific investment, as it was the only one that approached the process.
According to the investment agreement that reached Calcalist, 42 different investors invested in the investment partnership to the tune of almost $7 million, while the rest of the acquisition capital, about $10 million, was financed by the lending bank. "It is important to note that apart from us and the bank, there were no other participants and there were no offers at all, despite numerous publications made to the general public in the press, on social networks, and to investor lists - which the bank claimed included about 25,000 records," explained the controlling shareholder and founder of Rilco, Tomer Hai, the central management figure in the company.
The sale of the company that held the office building in Ohio is another link in a chain testifying to the challenging financial situation of Rilco Investments, which until four years ago was one of the prominent companies in the field of real estate investments, mainly income-producing real estate in the US. The company, which enjoyed a significant influx of investors, operated through investment partnerships and therefore they are considered investments in securities under the supervision of the Securities Authority. Qualified investors are not entitled to the protection of the Securities Authority, in light of the perception that their capital is supposed to ensure their ability to invest in securities without a prospectus. In 2022, the Authority imposed a sanction on Rilco because it offered the investment to non-qualified investors beyond the 35 investors as stipulated by law.
The first hints of difficulties appeared in July 2025. Investors who contacted Calcalist said that at that time, Hai approached various investors and asked to inject additional capital into assets held by the company, for fear of the lending banks taking them over. According to investors in several Rilco assets, since that request, several associations of investors in assets worth about $150 million have been established, and some of them are represented by Adv. Ido Kosover against the company. The association is a sign that the investors are trying to gain control over some of the assets, even though the investment structure does not grant them management rights.
