The latest transaction marks the tenth hotel deal in which the McLean, Virginia-based real estate investor has joined with Denver-based Sage Hospitality Resources.
2 min read · 23 January 2013
The New York-based private equity firm has added Adam Aron, a ten-year veteran of former Apollo portfolio company Vail Resorts, to its roster as a senior operating partner.
2 min read · 23 January 2013
Founded in 2003 by former executives of Franchise Finance Corporation of America, Spirit Finance is a publicly listed REIT focused on sale-leasebacks for the retail, service and distribution industries. With balance sheet assets of approximately $2.5 billion, Spirit recently completed the largest retail sale-leaseback ever, the $815 million acquisition of the real estate assets of ShopKo, the retailer recently acquired by Sun Capital Partners. Here, Christopher Volk talks about the ShopKo deal, the economic environment for retailers and why corporate capital efficiency may be the next big wave in corporate America.
4 min read · 23 January 2013
Starting from an NYU dorm room in the early 1980s, Joseph Sitt began purchasing property in the blighted neighborhoods of New York and converting them into inner-city shopping strips. Along the way, he built up his own retail chains, renovated outer-borough shopping centers and built Thor Equities into an investment firm with more than $2 billion invested in urban mixed-use strategies across the US. Thor, which closed its first commingled fund in 2004, recently purchased the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago. Here Sitt speaks about urban retail, the need to think multi-dimensionally and the importance of a good sound system.
4 min read · 23 January 2013
Over the past few years, retail has become a popular target for private equity and property investors alike, providing all manner of opportunity—and risk—for shop-savvy investors. By Aaron Lovell
3 min read · 23 January 2013
Founded in 1995 by Jon Bauer, Janice Stanton and Gil Tenzer, Contrarian Capital is a multi-strategy hedge fund focused on distressed opportunities. The Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm currently has over $4 billion in funds under management, including the Contrarian Real Estate Fund, which has a $250 million capacity. Here, Tenzer, who oversees the firm's real estate platform, speaks about Contrarian's focus on distress, the difficulty of finding opportunities in today's market and why every dog has his day.
4 min read · 23 January 2013
Demand for condominiums is faltering across the US as speculators exit the market. Can private equity real estate firms pick up the pieces? By Alison Granito
8 min read · 23 January 2013
Italy's non-performing loan market rolls on while investors wait for a new wave of distressed real estate assets. By Robin Marriott
5 min read · 23 January 2013
Distressed real estate opportunities may not be as ubiquitous as in the past, but savvy property investors know that something is always going badly somewhere—you just have to know where to look.
3 min read · 23 January 2013
Over the past six years, Mark Newman and Gerald Parkes have both run the European arm of Lehman Brothers' private equity real estate operations. Here the duo talk about the investment bank's silo-free model, their strong commitment to long-term partnerships and why investing in real estate is a lot like playing golf. By Paul Fruchbom
10 min read · 23 January 2013
