Raising Rosinka

Alan Senie and Nolan Kerschner knew they had their work cut out for them as they sat around a conference table at the London headquarters of the Morgan Grenfell bank last January. Their goal: to secure $24 million to begin an ambitious and risky project. Alan, a lawyer, and Nolan, a builder, were proposing to create the first Western-style suburban housing in the Soviet Union, something much larger companies had contemplated but never attempted.

They already had two strikes against them as they began their pitch. First, the condominium-style project they were to outline represented the partners' first foray into international housing. In fact, they had rarely ventured out of their home state of Connecticut in the 25 years they had worked together. Second, at an estimated $130 million, this was by far the largest project Alan and Nolan had ever undertaken; perhaps a huge developer like Bechtel could reliably cover such an undertaking, but this tab was a massive one for the little partnership. Although Alan and Nolan were clearly serious, an outsider had to wonder just who these guys thought they were.

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