IndCor, which focuses on the ownership and management of industrial properties, welcomed John Collins as CFO.
Collins joined IndCor in September 2012 and is responsible for all financial activities including accounting and internal controls, financial planning and analysis, treasury functions, tax, and risk management.
Prior to IndCor, Collins was the CAO at Pearlmark Real Estate Partners, an investment firm sponsoring a series of private institutional real estate funds with assets located throughout the U.S. While holding this position, he was responsible for financial and investor reporting for Pearlmark’s commercial and multifamily properties and high-yield debt opportunities.
Preceding his position at Pearlmark, Collins was an auditor at Ernst & Young, where he audited the equity office’s various SEC filings.
NREI talked to Collins about the issues facing the industrial commercial real estate community and asked him to peek into his crystal ball to predict what’s next for the sector.
NREI: What legislative or regulatory issues do you see as paramount in 2013 as they pertain to the industrial sector?
John Collins: Like everyone else, we’re following the recent debt ceiling discussions in Washington with interest. However, we can’t control the outcome of that debate. Therefore, at IndCor we’re much more focused on our own business. Being a portfolio company of Blackstone has allowed us to grow significantly in our two years. Blackstone’s access to capital and our ability to move quickly has enabled us to acquire more than 84 million sq. ft. to date. The feedback and information we receive from other Blackstone portfolio companies, like Equity Office, has provided great resources that support our investment strategy.
Most of our growth came primarily from three large portfolio deals. But more recently, we’ve initiated another strategy by acquiring smaller, one-off transactions, including our two recent transactions in Texas and Florida. Our ability to increase the size of our platform via large or small transaction sizes gives us a competitive advantage over our peers. We’re more focused on continuing the upward trend in our overall occupancy than on anything happening in Congress.
NREI: Looking at the industrial sector, how do you see it faring as the economy continues to improve?
John Collins: We’re all operating in an environment of uncertainty. But right now is a great time to invest in industrial product. The industrial sector’s fortunes are very tightly correlated to GDP growth. As GDP increases, so does our leasing activity. Inventories decreased during 2008 and 2009 but are now above pre-downturn levels.
The rise in inventories across our economy has directly driven demand for industrial space. Vacancy in industrial buildings has been shrinking, especially in coastal markets. Our recent acquisition activity in 2012 expanded our presence in those coastal markets, particularly in California. We’re excited by the upward trends in activity we’re seeing from potential tenants in all regions of the country.
NREI: Looking a little more long term, how do you think the industrial sector will do over the next five years?
John Collins: I believe the industrial sector will continue to do well over the next five years. Industrial tenant rental rates steadily increased in 2012. We expect this trend to continue into 2013 in the form of solid rental rate growth.
Along with this rental rate growth, the industrial market has seen positive net absorption for ten straight quarters and counting. Annual absorption is steady at around 100 million sq. ft. per year and is poised for improvement as our economy expands. In contrast, new industrial construction activity only provided new supply of 35 million sq. ft. in 2012. Clearly, new supply is not keeping up with demand, which should bode well for the industrial sector for several years to come.
Chip Clarke was promoted to a newly created position of president, Americas at Transwestern. The company also promoted Kevin Roberts to president, Southwest.
Clarke directs Transwestern’s overall operations in North and South America and he oversees the firm’s brokerage services and property management projects across the Americas. He previously served as president of the Gulf Coast and Mountain regions and has been with the firm for 22 years.
During his tenure with the firm, Clarke directed the Gulf Coast and Mountain regions, opened the Denver office in 1997 and served as executive vice president in the Houston office leasing group. He has also been active in many of the firm’s office and healthcare initiatives.
Roberts previously served as president of Transwestern’s Central Texas region. He has been with the company for 24 years. Roberts began his Transwestern career as an office leasing agent and has completed in excess of 280 lease transactions totaling more than 1.4 million sq. ft.
Charles Dallara joins Partners Group, the global private markets investment manager, as a partner.
Dallara will be based in the United States, and will also serve as chairman of the Americas. In addition, the board of directors will propose Dallara as a new board member and vice chairman of the board of directors of Partners Group Holding AG at the annual general meeting of shareholders in May.
Dallara has been the managing director of the Institute of International Finance since 1993. Under his leadership, the IIF has been involved in numerous highly publicized initiatives, including the voluntary debt restructuring agreement between private creditors and Greece—the largest debt restructuring in history. Prior to IIF, Dallara held a number of senior positions in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.
GFI Management Services appointed Jeffrey Adler president of the firm.
He is responsible for the company’s portfolio, in conjunction with a third party management subsidiary, of 16,000 residential apartment units in New York, Georgia, Texas, Michigan, Florida, Kansas and Missouri.
Adler brings more than10 years of property management experience to GFI. Most recently he was president of The Sanctuary Group, a management consulting firm to the residential housing rental industry.
The real estate investment and management firm 13th Floor Investments hired Rey Melendi as COO and partner.
Melendi comes to 13th Floor from Rialto Capital Management, a diversified real estate investment, management, development and finance company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Lennar Corp. At Rialto, Melendi managed more than $300 million in commercial and residential REO properties and was involved in the acquisition of distressed real estate portfolios across the country from banks and other financial institutions.
At 13th Floor, Melendi will supervise the construction of 400 Sunny Isles, a new condominium development in partnership with Key International. He will also oversee asset management.
Bradford Allen expanded its service platform by forming Bradford Allen Management Services, a new practice group that will be led by Roger Clark.
Clark brings more than 25 years of property and asset management experience. As president of management services, he will identify, develop, direct and operate all management assignments for the firm. In his career, Clark has managed more than 20 million sq. ft. of office and industrial space throughout the Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Des Moines markets.
Michael Anderson has been promoted to executive vice president and has taken an equity partnership with Colvill Office Properties.
Anderson was formerly vice president, leasing with Colvill. He has been responsible for leasing more than 5 million sq. ft. since joining the company in 2004.
MB Real Estate appointed Suzanne Hendrick as senior vice president of asset management.
She brings more than 20 years of real estate experience to her new role. Hendrick comes to MB Real Estate from The John Buck Co., where she served as a vice president and general manager. For six years she oversaw property management of 111 South Wacker Drive, a 1-million-sq.-ft., 52-story, class-A high-rise.
Bell Partners Inc. welcomed Gwyneth Jones Cote as senior vice president of operations in the company’s Bell Apartment Living Division.
Cote will have overall responsibility for all fund communities. She has more than 20 years experience in the multifamily industry. Most recently Cote operated an independent consulting firm that focused on providing advice to private real estate companies across the U.S.
American Realty Capital hired Donald MacKinnon and Nicholas Radesca for the debt capital markets and corporate finance team.
MacKinnon served as a portfolio manager of high-yield credit-sensitive commercial real estate debt products for a real estate advisory company and as a managing director at Nomura Securities International. Radesca joins the firm as a senior vice president and CAO. Previously he was with Solar Capital Ltd. and Solar Senior Capital Ltd., where he served as the CFO and corporate secretary of both of these publicly traded business development companies specializing in corporate lending.
Paladin Realty Partners LLC promoted six of its executives.
Randall Loker, Pablo J. Sala, Joel Bost and Scot E. Hadley have been promoted as senior vice presidents and Michael J. Pelletier and Santiago Gil have been promoted as vice presidents for the firm, a real estate investor and developer in Latin America.
Loker handles the origination and management of investments in Brazil and Peru. Prior to joining Paladin in 2007, he was a project manager for Toll Brothers, where he managed the construction and sales of residential projects in Northern California.
Sala is involved in originating and managing the firm’s investments in Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Chile. Before joining Paladin in 2008, he was a director at Cushman & Wakefield’s global consulting group and development consulting practice.
Bost heads up asset management for the firm’s Latin America portfolio. Prior to joining Paladin Realty in 2005, he was the corporate controller at American Apparel.
Hadley oversees various accounting, tax and finance functions at Paladin, which he joined in 1998. Previously, he held a number of accounting and finance positions at William E. Simon & Sons LLC and other firms.
Pelletier is involved in various aspects of the firm's investments throughout Latin America. Gil focuses on the firm's investments in Mexico and Uruguay.
Lincoln Property Co. welcomed Robert E. Lee, as a vice president in the Parsippany, N.J. office.
Lee comes to Lincoln after 14 years as senior vice president with Grubb & Ellis Co. Before that, he spent 17 years with CBRE in their New York City and then northern New Jersey offices. Over the years, Lee has represented notable long-term office lease transactions including the 325,000-sq.-ft. lease on behalf of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in Manhattan and the 115,000-sq.-ft. lease to Biovail on behalf of Sunbelt Management in Bridgewater, N.J.
Nicholas Nicolaou was promoted from sales associate to vice president at Gebroe-Hammer Associates. He was also named salesperson of the year by the firm.
Nicolaou joined Gebroe-Hammer’s training and mentoring program as a Hudson County market specialist after working at two prominent national brokerage firms, where he closed only one deal. At the close of his first full year at Gebroe-Hammer, he ranked among the firm’s top three brokerage professionals, orchestrating transactions valued at more than $32 million.
Londregan Commercial Real Estate Group named Stephanie Pious as vice president of the firm, the Connecticut affiliate of Paramount Partners.
During her career Pious has represented a large number of clients ranging from local business owners, manufacturing companies, non- profit organizations and hospitals. In the industrial market, she was instrumental in the sale of MeadWestvaco Corp.’s 166,000-sq.-ft.-plant in Enfield, Conn. Working on behalf of Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, Conn., Pious orchestrated the purchase of its new 48,000-sq.-ft. office building.
Coldwell Banker Commercial Alliance launched a new Denver brokerage and advisory services operation.
The new office will be led by Ben Gilliam and Jon Treter, who most recently served with Denver’s Newmark Knight Frank Frederick Ross. The two men formed a commercial real estate partnership in 2001 and have exceeded $174 million in sales and leasing transaction volume since then.
They will be managing principals at Coldwell Banker. The office will deliver a full menu of services for small cap and mid-size real estate investors and commercial tenants.
Avison Young hired Eric Myers to serve as principal in the firm’s brokerage operations in Chicago.
He will lead the firm’s landlord/agency-leasing efforts in Chicago and the Midwest. During his 21-year career, he closed more than 3 million sq. ft. of office leases in the Chicago metropolitan area. He was most recently an office leasing broker specializing in landlord representation with Tishman Speyer in Chicago.
Mountain Real Estate Capital opened its new office in San Diego and hired Lisa Albanez as managing director to lead its expansion effort in the western region of the United States.
Mountain’s focus in the west will be in both primary and secondary markets throughout southern and northern California as well as the Las Vegas, Phoenix and Seattle markets. Albanez has more than 20 years of experience in the industry and over the course of her career has been involved in residential projects totaling over 40,000 new homes with a retail value in excess of $10 billion, working with both private and public builders.
CBRE Group Inc. named Patricia Proshek executive managing director and global leader of its real estate accounting services group.
She will oversee client accounting for CBRE’s asset services and global corporate services clients worldwide. Previously, Proshek led CBRE’s real estate accounting services in the Americas for the past seven years.
Proshek is a 25-year veteran of CBRE. In her current role in the Americas, she oversees the delivery of real estate accounting services for more than 1,000 clients through the work of 800 professionals representing in excess of 650 million sq. ft. of real estate.
HFF hired Christopher Carroll to the firm as a managing director in its Chicago office to focus on debt placement transactions in the Midwestern United States.
Carroll has more than 20 years of experience in commercial real estate finance and most recently served as a managing director for Cohen Financial where he led a team of six capital markets professionals.
Stonegate Mortgage Corp. opened a full-service retail office in Akron, Ohio.
Senior Branch Manager Joshua Leeser will lead the new office. He brings more than 15 years of experience in the mortgage lending industry, specializing in Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Affairs and conventional financing loans.
Rand Commercial added Vincent J. Monte to their sales team in the New City, N.Y. office. Monte has been involved in the commercial real estate and title insurance business since 1966 and is president of The Monte Group and Vincent J Monte Inc.