L&L Holding Company has appointed Alex C. O’Connor as an associate in the firm’s acquisitions department.
O’Connor will join L&L’s acquisitions team headed by Senior Managing Director of Acquisitions, Yong W. Cho. He will focus on the valuation, strategy and execution of new investments for L&L. His responsibilities will include acquisition underwriting and due diligence, financial modeling and deal structuring.
Prior to joining L&L, O’Connor served as an Associate at AR Global. Before that, he helped complete more than $6 billion in transactions as part of a ten-person CBRE team led by Darcy Stacom and William Shanahan advising institutional clients on complex property dispositions.
O’Connor received two Bachelor of Science degrees in Finance and Real Estate from Florida State University. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute and NYPEN, and is actively involved in the iMentor mentorship program for students in low-income communities.
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Greystone announced that Shana Daby has joined as a Managing Director and Deputy Chief Underwriter within the FHA lending team.
Daby brings 14 years of real estate finance industry experience to Greystone and will focus on HUD affordable housing transactions, particularly in the Western U.S.
Prior to joining Greystone, Daby was a Managing Director and Deputy Chief Underwriter at Barings Multifamily Capital LLC.
She also held previous FHA underwriting roles at ACRE Capital LLC and CWCapital (acquired by Walker & Dunlop). Additionally, she spent six years underwriting tax credit equity investments at PNC Bank.
Daby earned a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and undergraduate degrees in Finance and Spanish from the University of St. Thomas.
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Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co. announced that former New York City Housing Authority Chairman and CEO John Rhea, a 30-year investment banking professional, has joined the firm as president of the Corporate Finance and Capital Markets division.
Rhea, a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group and the founder and managing partner of RHEAL Capital Management, will lead the corporate banking, sales and trading teams and continue the expansion of SCSCO’s corporate finance presence.
From 1997-2009, Rhea was a managing director and investment banking group head at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and later Barclays Capital (formerly Lehman Brothers), where he advised on more than $100 billion of transactions.
Earlier in his career, he worked at PepsiCo, Inc. as a manager of corporate strategy and development; the Boston Consulting Group as a management consultant; and PaineWebber as a public finance analyst and associate.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the founder of Bloomberg, L.P., appointed Rhea Chairman and CEO of NYCHA in 2009 and he served until 2014, leading the nation’s largest public housing authority.
Rhea is also a principal in an investment group that in 2015 purchased the historic Fisher and Albert Khan buildings in Detroit.
He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the Harvard Business School.
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Tarter Krinsky & Drogin announced that Jeffrey A. Lowin has joined the firm as a counsel in the Trusts and Estates practice.
Lowin has more than 30 years of experience advising individual clients, families at times of transition, owners of closely held businesses, estates and private foundations in the administration of estates and trusts
Lowin is admitted to practice in both New York and Florida. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC).
Lowin received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal on Legislation, and received his A.B. from Harvard College, where he was named to Phi Beta Kappa.
Prior to joining Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, Lowin was a partner at Morison Cohen LLP.
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StepStone Real Estate has hired Jay Morgan as Managing Director to focus on research, manager selection and primary and secondary investments in private real estate funds.
Prior to joining StepStone, Morgan was with Courtland Partners where he was the consultant to several state and sovereign plans, director of research, portfolio manager to the Courtland fund of funds platform and a member of the investment committee.
Previously, Morgan was a partner and head of research at Heartland and Company.
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Rouse Properties has appointed seasoned retail professional Bill King as Managing Vice President of Leasing.
King, who possesses over 20 years’ industry experience and has held prominent leasing positions with leading retail owners Bayer Properties, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust and the Westfield Corporation, will primarily be responsible for overseeing the leasing efforts at Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, New Jersey, and Burlington Town Center in Burlington, Vermont.
Earlier this year, Rouse announced its intentions to transform each asset into state-of-the-art mixed-used centers.
King comes to Rouse from Bayer Properties, where he spent the past nine years as Vice President of Leasing.
At Bayer, his responsibilities included managing key partner relationships and personnel, and cultivating new-to-market lease agreements across the company’s national portfolio.
Prior to Bayer, King spent time at PREIT and Westfield, where he assisted with the leasing efforts at several of each companies’ highest performing assets.
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Cushman & Wakefield announced that Carl Wunderlich, a commercial real estate veteran with more than 15 years of experience, has rejoined the organization as Director for the Westchester and Connecticut markets.
Wunderlich will be responsible for tenant and landlord representation, with a focus on retail and suburban markets in Westchester and Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Most recently, Wunderlich worked with Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc. where he served as a Senior Leasing Representative. During his three and half years at the organization, Wunderlich was able to stabilize properties in declining suburban markets by achieving above market rents on new deals and securing long term renewals.
Prior to this role, he also served as an Associate Director for Retail Services at Cushman & Wakefield.
Throughout his career, Wunderlich has managed and helped arrange numerous mixed-use projects with clients including Whole Foods, Starbucks, Sprint, Boost Mobile, AutoZone, Aldi, and, Wells Fargo and CAVA Grill – two of the highest square footage projects in Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc.’s portfolio.
As a tenant, landlord representative, he’s worked for major metro New York landlords including Verizon, SJP Properties, Jamestown, LeFrak, and TF Cornerstone.
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Evergreen Insurance & Risk Management announced the appointment of Robert J. Horowitz as Vice President of Corporate Development.
Horowitz will be responsible for Mergers & Acquisitions, corporate strategy and identifying and implementing additional revenue streams for Evergreen.
Horowitz joins Evergreen Insurance with more than a decade of experience in insurance development, private equity and corporate finance.
Horowitz has completed over $500 Million of investment transactions and has extensive experience in corporate development, joint ventures, merger and acquisition, and financing transactions that achieved corporate priorities and created significant value for shareholders at Merrill Lynch & Co., Spencer Trask Ventures and Four Springs Capital, LLC.
Horowitz was most recently the Chief Operating Officer at Borden Perlman Salisbury & Kelly.
He graduated with honorary distinction from both Seton Hall University, where he completed his Undergraduate Bachelors of Science, and Rutgers University, where he received his M.B.A.
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Peckar & Abramson, P.C. announced that construction and infrastructure lawyer Karla Pascarella has joined the firm as a Partner.
Pascarella represents a wide range of international and domestic corporate clients and construction professionals. Her practice primarily concentrates on commercial litigation, corporate compliance and governance, complex dispute resolution, and construction law.
Fluent in both Spanish and English, she regularly handles international business transactions and disputes and assists corporate clients with strategic legal decisions and global business matters.
Prior to joining Peckar & Abramson, Pascarella served as General Counsel for the North American affiliate of Isolux Corsan, a $2.1 billion international engineering, procurement and construction company. .
Pascarella is admitted to practice in the State of Texas and is a member of the State Bar, where she serves as both a Council Member for the International Section and Human Rights Committee and an appointed Member of the Committee on Women in the Profession.
She received her law degree from St. Mary’s University School of Law and her bachelor of business administration from the University of the Incarnate Word.
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Hunt Mortgage Group announced that Justin Short has joined the firm as Managing Director.
He will focus on expanding Hunt Mortgage Group’s Proprietary (non-agency) platform, including originating loans.
Prior to joining Hunt Mortgage Group, Short was head of trading for the specialty real estate finance firm and investment manager Allegiant Real Estate Capital, which spun off from FirstKey lending, a Cerberus portfolio company.
Before that, he was head of trading and capital markets at Blackstone’s single family rental platform, B2R Finance, and head trader for Cantor Commercial Real Estate, Cantor Fitzgerald’s commercial real estate lending platform.
Justin started his career in real estate finance at Bear Stearns and subsequently, after the merger, JPMorgan, where during his eight-year tenure he focused on CMBS trading and capital markets.
Before entering the finance profession, Short worked as an engineer at Texas Instruments and Raytheon. He graduated from Texas A&M with a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering, from Southern Methodist University with an MBA and taught Real Estate Capital Markets at CUNY Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business in New York City.
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Vesta Corporation announced that Aaron Greenblatt has joined the property development and management company as legal counsel.
Greenblatt has been hired to serve as in-house, corporate counsel on various legal and strategic issues in the operation of Vesta’s business and related affiliates.
He will utilize his diverse legal background to negotiate contracts, advise the company on contract formation, operation, and interpretation, and ensure low income housing tax credit and regulatory compliance.
Prior to joining Vesta, Greenblatt practiced at a major Connecticut law firm representing lenders and borrowers, including Vesta, in various commercial transactions.
He was involved with acquisition and construction financing, bond and tax credit transactions, and traditional mortgage financing.
