BAM Capital, the Government, and Me and the Smoking Gun Evidence

It was early 2024 when the agent I was working with as a source on a particular matter (a matter I agreed not to publicly discuss), requested that I take a look at another investment opportunity Reg D real estate syndicator located in the state of Indiana.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Barry,” he said, “but the fact that the government is asking for your help doesn’t mean much. We’ve also solicited drug-lord kingpins and Al Qaeda.”

Somewhere in that statement, I chose to hear a compliment.

The company was the Carmel, Indiana–based BAM Capital (formerly Barratt Asset Management). Agreeing to that request changed the trajectory of the next two years—and counting—of my life. I would never have written this article, or laid out “you’re-indicted-if-it-ain’t-true” detail, had Ivan Barratt—the long-standing CEO of BAM Capital and darling of industry media—not issued a seemingly benign press release on December 10, 2025 announcing the sale of an asset.

To most readers, it meant nothing.

To me, it was the smoking gun.

By way of background, it quickly became clear that Ivan Barratt is exceptionally intelligent—without qualification. He anticipates scrutiny. He sanitizes history. The Wayback Machine? Scrubbed. Past representations that could be tested against current claims? Gone. Playing the “representation versus misrepresentation” game with Ivan Barratt is not easy—because he has already removed the board.

He is also a master of what I call “Google games”: aggressive SEO, paid ads, and reputation laundering designed to bury anything that might contradict today’s narrative. Words like polished, careful, and strategic don’t do him justice. Try finding my, “What did Bam Capital do with the $80M online (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reg-d-multifamily-case-study-what-did-bam-capital-do-80-barry-minkow-mxzsc/?trackingId=xToH1M5Th5WiQ%2BJpcvPScw%3D%3D).

Two examples, then the evidence.

First, Ivan Barratt was among the earliest Reg D multifamily sponsors to create a ten-figure “Preferred Credit Fund.” I have warned regulators about these structures more times than there were felony counts in my ZZZZ Best indictment. These funds allow syndicators to vertical into lending—sidestepping cap rates, ballooning insurance costs, and tenants who don’t pay rent—while operating under Reg D rules that provide extraordinary latitude. As long as interest payments are made, time is bought. Rates will fall. Values will rise. Reality can wait.

Second—and more important—I am not aware of any Reg D borrower who obtained more future-advance loans from Merchants Bank than BAM Capital. Coincidentally, Merchants Bank’s main office is minutes from BAM Capital’s headquarters in Carmel, Indiana.

To eliminate any reliance on my interpretation, I have uploaded every supporting public record—county filings, notarized loan notes, and title reports—here:Please see https://app.box.com/s/a2s4kxpr7164c2ujznmxa8pc0kz2tc5d.

So here is the evidence:

On December 10, 2025, BAM Capital issued a press release stating:

“Acquired by BAM Capital in 2017 and managed by the award-winning BAM Management, Oakdale Square Apartments delivered exceptional returns to investors, achieving 31.5% IRR and 5.08x MOIC returns. The disposition is a prime example of The BAM Companies’ full-cycle investment strategy…”

Let’s break that down:

31.5% IRR
5.08x MOIC
A “full-cycle” investment
Acquired in 2017
Sold in 2025

According to title reports, county records, and notarized loan documents, BAM Capital purchased Oakdale Square Apartments in January 2017 for $10.1 million. At acquisition, the asset carried a subcategory cap rate of 7.34% and a book value of $15,953,233.

Then Mr. Barratt obtained a 1st TD from Merchants Bank for $8,160,000 and according to page 57 of 107 of the notarized loan documents a future advance loan which increased the potential principal balance to $16,320,000. However, and to prove these future advance loans are actually exercised and not window dressing or template add-ins, Costar’s detailed property report on the asset specifically shows a January 2017 debt of $16,320.000 (page 54 of 82 and included in the app box link). That appears to confirm that (1) Bam Capital exercised future advance and (2) it shows a property just purchased for $10.1M has $16,320,000 in debt. Even factoring in the book value, the property is over-encumbered and in my experience assets with more debt than equity do not typically throw off profitability to LPs. Additionally, and on page 43 of 52 of the updated title report for the 1655 asset, the same $16.3M debt is recorded for January 2017.

In other words, an apartment complex purchased for $10.1 million was immediately levered to $16.3 million.That appears to confirm that (1) Bam Capital exercised future advance and (2) shows a property just purchased for $10.1M has $16,320,000 in debt. Additionally, and on page 43 of 52 of the new title report for the 1655 asset, the same $16.3M debt is recorded for January 2017. These are conditions for profitability.

Next, BAM Capital’s offering materials for Funds I through IV—used to impress prospective investors—list both realized deals (with IRRs) and currently held assets. Oakdale Square Apartments, acquired in 2017, should have appeared as a held asset in every fund until December 2025.

It didn’t.

Oakdale Square appears only once: in BAM Capital Fund II’s July 2021 materials, where it is listed under Realized Investments with the following disclosure:

“Oakdale Square Apartments – Invested Equity: $2,120,000; Sale Price: $23,461,673; Equity Multiple: 4.18x.”

Before that, it is absent from Fund I. After that, it is missing from Funds III and IV. This omission is especially troubling in Fund IV, which lists all fully realized assets as of January 2023 and separately lists all single-asset acquisitions. Oakdale Square appears in neither list. Then something unusual happens.

In August 2023—two years after the asset was supposedly sold—BAM Capital obtained a $19,850,000 loan secured by Oakdale Square, with a future-advance provision allowing total debt to reach $39,700,000. At that time, the asset’s book value was $21,201,476 with a cap rate of 6.74%.

Even without exercising the future advance, the loan represented a 93.63% LTV, a violation of Fannie Mae standards—before accounting for any additional borrowing between August 2023 and December 2025.

Which raises the unavoidable question: Before that the asset is absent from Fund I and not contained in Funds three and four. This is particularly troubling with Fund 4 where on page 10 all the fully realized assets as of January 2023 are listed (12) and all the single asset purchases (the 1655 asset was a single asset purchase) are listed (17, page 33 of 56).

In July 2021, the asset carried a subcategory cap rate of 5.94% and a book value of $21,613,517.

Then something unusual happens.

In August 2023—two years after the asset was supposedly “sold”—BAM Capital obtained a $19,850,000 loan secured by Oakdale Square, with a future-advance provision allowing total debt to reach $39,700,000. At that time, the asset’s book value was $21,201,476 with a cap rate of 6.74%.

Which raises the unavoidable question:

If Oakdale Square was sold in July 2021 for $23.4 million—paying investors a 4.18x multiple—whose money serviced the at or near maxed out equity debt from August 2023 through December 2025?

Investors were ostensibly “out.” Yet for more than two years, the property carried debt near or exceeding its value. The cash-flow capacity of a 200-unit apartment complex in Bloomington, Indiana is finite.

This is not a marketing oversight. The asset was systematically omitted from multiple fund disclosures. Even BAM Capital’s NOX offering materials fail to disclose the 2021 sale.

And yet, in December 2025, BAM Capital announced a triumphant “full-cycle” exit—31.5% IRR, and upped the 4.18 to a 5.08x MOIC—on an asset that had already been sold to itself years earlier.

What was omitted is the point.

Investors were paid out in 2021. The property remained encumbered by excessive debt for years afterward. That debt did not vanish. In my opinion, the debt proceeds were used to support other assets—precisely the function of a billion-dollar credit vehicle operating in the shadows.

The documents don’t speculate. They don’t editorialize. They don’t care who reads them.

They simply contradict the story.

One more detail. Hunter Bloomington Properties was the buyer of the 1655 South Oakdale asset for $26,460,000 and lists the property in its currently held assets (https://www.hunterbloomington.com/). But the property is also listed in the currently held “active” section of another Reg D syndicator (also located in Indiana), without any disclosure of proportionate ownership if, in fact there is an undisclosed GP agreement. It has been listed this way from as far back as my initial inquiry into Bam Capital.

In conclusion, Bam Capital issued a press release in December of 2025 indicating that as of that date investors received a 31.5% IRR return and a 5.08x MOIC (MOIC stands for Multiple on Invested Capital. It is a straightforward way to measure how many times you multiplied your initial “pot” of money), from an asset purchased in January of 2017 for $10.1M. What they omitted in that release and numerous offering materials was that the sale was a repeat of an already sold property where investors were paid out because they purchased it from themselves. And for years that asset carried at, near or exceeding maxed out debt–not conditions conducive for profitability, (the 2017 loan) and a 93.63% LTV from August 2024 to December 2025. They concealed the asset from funds three and four offering documents (and Nox) and, in my opinion used the borrowed funds to prop up other assets which is the purpose of the $1B “Preferred Credit Fund.”

This pattern is not a paperwork oversight; it is a financing strategy that, in my view, weaponizes opacity, over‑encumbrance, and repeat “sales” to manufacture track records and cash flow where the underlying economics do not support them. When a sponsor can quietly buy from itself, suppress inconvenient deal history, and layer on future‑advance leverage while marketing eye‑popping IRRs and MOICs, the real risk is no longer just bad underwriting—it is the erosion of trust in an entire corner of the private markets. And it would appear Mr. Barratt used the loan proceeds to prop up other Bam Capital non-performing assets. All of this did not happen in a vacuum. If there is still a measure of doubt, please see, if you can find it, the “What did Bam Capital do with the $80M,” article. The December 10, 2025 press release proves that Ivan Barratt is the smartest guy in the Reg D “room.”