Ara Hovnanian is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and led the company through 19 acquisitions of smaller builders from 1999 through the early stages of the housing crisis. The company relied heavily on debt to fund the acquisitions. However, falling property prices has forced the company to write off more than $2.6 billion of its value since 2006. As of October 2018, the company's debt load is $1.5 billion and interest payments amount to about $40 million per quarter.