A candid conversation with Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the former NBA star who has become one of the most visible private equity real estate investors in urban America.
2 min read · 23 January 2013
Activity on the ski slopes is heating up as Fortress and Starwood make moves in the sector. Has the time come for a ski resort play?
2 min read · 23 January 2013
The board of the Australian retailer has rejected the $12bn offer from a consortium of private equity firms including KKR, Blackstone and Bain Capital.
2 min read · 23 January 2013
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
