WITH MORE THAN $300 BILLION IN INVESTMENT POWER BEHIND THEM,
THESE INSTITUTIONAL PLAYERS ARE LOOKING AT CLEVER WAYS
TO MOVE AHEAD IN THE GREAT YIELD CHASE
If you ask the big money, the only certainty the election results pro- vided was that well, election season was over. With the continuing ridlock on Capitol Hill and fiscal issues to be dealt with, those who control the nation’s institutional capital aren’t making their investment decisions based on politics. Rather, they’re looking at simple fundamentals—economic, capital market and geographic—to determine where, and when, to place capi- tal. And by the looks of it, competition in the highly sought-after core markets has led these decision makers to find some interesting ways in which to play their hands. Representatives from seven of the nation’s largest institutional invest- ment companies convened at the New York Palace late last year for Transwestern and Real Estate Forum’s Eighth Annual Capital Markets Symposium. For nearly two hours the experts spoke candidly about their view of the investment market, the debt and equity opportunities that are out there and what they intend to do with their firms’ capital this year. The discussion was so packed with information this year that Forum’s editors decided to release the content as a series of (edited) roundtable discussions, the first of which appears below. Two more will follow—with insight from these institutional insiders on the impact of the fiscal cliff resolution, alternative investments, partial interest equity plays, expected volume for next year and what keeps them up and night—in a special series on GlobeSt.com.
PARTICIPANTS
FROM LEFT:
investments. AEW also invests in opportunistic and
seniors housing investments. In 2012, the firm completed about $1.7 billion in acquisitions.
Richard Coppola is managing director of real
estate finance for TIAA-CREF. The New York City-based firm has about $49 billion in real estate
assets under management, including $14 billion in
debt and $20 billion in equity. Coppola oversees
the debt side of the business. The firm did approximately $5.5 billion worth of debt and equity deals
in 2012.
Managing director Craig Tagen is head of asset
management at Clarion Partners in New York City,
were he is responsible for a platform of 1,200 invest-
ments across the US, Mexico and Brazil The firm has
in excess of $25 billion in gross assets under man-
agement, investing for both separate accounts and
funds, of which more than 70% is in core and core
plus assets. Clarion Partners has been an active
player in the transaction market, having made
approximately $2 billion of new acquisitions and dis-
posed of $1 billion in assets in 2012.
Steven E. Pumper (moderator) is executive managing
director of Transwestern’s investment services and
asset services groups in Dallas.
Michael G. Desiato (moderator) is vice president and
group publisher for ALM’s Real Estate Media Group in
New York City.
Todd Liker is managing director at Oaktree Capital
Management’s real estate group in New York City. The
team is organized into six areas of focus—commercial
(e.g. office, hotel, etc.); corporate; CMBS; commercial
NPL pools; residential; and non-US investments.
As a director with BlackRock in New York City, John
Lamb oversees the transactions side of a real estate
equity business with approximately $10 billion of real
estate equity investments in the US. The firm
acquired about $1.2 billion in assets this year and
disposed of some $1.5 billion. BlackRock invests in
office, industrial, retail and multifamily, as well as sin-gle-family and condo product.
Bill Cotter manages the Northeast Division within
Wells Fargo Commercial Real Estate’s Institutional
and Metro Markets Group. The EVP and division manager oversees in excess of $12 billion of commitments within the firm’s $120 billion of commercial
real estate assets, all of which is on-balance sheet.
Wells Fargo lends to public and private real estate
investors and developers across all product types.
Wells Fargo’s Commercial Real Estate group originated in excess of $20 billion last year.
