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Deals & Dealmakers

WHO’S NEWS: Witkoff hires hotel specialist; Greystar bolsters rental housing platform

Witkoff announced a strategic addition to its executive team with the hiring of lodging professional Scott Broder as Senior Vice President – Head of Hotel Investments.
Broder will oversee both future and current hotel investments for the firm.
Prior to joining Witkoff, Broder was the Director of Acquisitions at Sunstone Hotel Investors where he was involved in more than $1.5 billion of transactions,.
Broder also honed his skills in the asset management group at Sunstone, which oversaw more than 30 hotels, valued at over $5 billion.
Broder, who holds a degree from Cornell School of Hotel Administration, will be based out of Witkoff’s headquarters in New York.
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AmTrust Title Insurance Company announced that two new sales representatives, William Adamski and Mark Giarrusso, both Vice Presidents, have joined the company charged with the mandate of expanding AmTrust’s brand through new business development in the Greater New York Metro area.
The pair are the most recent vice presidents to join following the additions of Matthew Emanuelo and Michael Kantor hired earlier this year, along with Michael Ehrhardt, who was just promoted from Assistant Vice President to Vice President.

William Adamski

Prior to joining, William Adamski was a Sales Associate focused on customer relations and in-house training as a specialist with a Florida-based golfing enterprise, and earlier he was in guest services promoting the opening of Hilton Hotel’s new property in Melville, New York.
He earned a BS degree from Loyola University of Maryland and spent a semester abroad at University College Cork, Cork Ireland.

MARC GIARRUSSO

With a background in title insurance, real estate development, project management and financing, Mark Giarrusso was formerly a sales associate for New York City-based abstract title insurance company.
Earlier, he financed real estate projects for Buffalo, NY-based Largo Capital, and before that, was an executive with South Carolina-based Pelican Dunes, LLC, where he developed private spec homes, apartment complexes, and town homes.
He earned a BA degree from Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, PA.
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Rico T. Murtha has joined Cushman & Wakefield as a director.
He will work with Senior Directors Patrick Dugan and Joseph Cirone and will focus on tenant representation as a member of the firm’s leasing team serving the Brooklyn market.

RICO MURTHAMurtha previously served as a partner with Capstone Realty Advisors. His tenant representation work has included office relocations, lease renewals, expansions, subleasing, lease auditing, and general advisory services. 

His client base has represented such sectors as public- and private-sector users, technology companies, medical practices, non-profit organizations, advertisers, and architecture firms.
Murtha earned a bachelor’s degree in political philosophy from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
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Marcus & Millichap announced that Kim Kretowicz has joined the firm as Vice President with the Healthcare Real Estate Group (HREG) and National Office and Industrial Properties Group (NOIPG).
Kretowicz is a New Jersey office specialist based in the Manhattan office, providing extensive New Jersey market knowledge with Marcus and Millichap’s national investment sales platform.
Last year, Kretowicz advised and brokered over $30 million in office and medical office dispositions in New Jersey.
In her new position, Kretowicz will continue her focus as an advisor to office and healthcare property owners in New Jersey.
Kretowicz brings 25-years of experience in the corporate real estate industry, where prior to joining Marcus and Millichap she served as director at Stan Johnson, director at Cushman & Wakefield NJ, principal of KCRE Commercial Real Estate, LLC.
Kretowicz also has served as senior vice president and Executive Committee Member at Grubb and Ellis, vice president and manager of Weichert Commercial Brokerage’s Central New Jersey office.
Kretowicz attended Marymount University with a concentration in Business.
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Greystar Real Estate Partners announced new team members to support the firm’s growing rental housing platform globally.
Adam Pillay joins Greystar as senior managing director and the leader of the global Investor Relations team.
Pillay brings more than a decade of experience in real estate private equity and investment banking, having held senior positions within J.P. Morgan Asset Management, CIM Group and Macquarie Capital.
Based in New York, he reports to Wes Fuller, executive managing director, Investment Management and the leader of Greystar’s international businesses.
Also, joining Greystar and reporting to Pillay are: Claudius Weissbarth, managing director, responsible for European investor strategy and development and European and Middle Eastern institutional investor relationships; Michael Winiarski, Senior Director, and Jennifer Ciullo, Director, responsible for North American institutional investor relationships.
They join the current Investor Relations team of Jonathan Taylor, Managing Director, who leads the Investment Strategy and Research team; and Rachael Brittingham, Director, who leads the Client Relations team.
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Gettry Marcus CPA, P.C. announced that Gabe Shurek has been promoted to partner.
hurek, CPA, CFE, CVA, is the newest partner in the Business Valuation and Litigation Services Group at Gettry Marcus.

GABE SHUREK

He started as a junior accountant at Gettry Marcus in 2001, and rose through the ranks to director before his latest promotion.
With over 17 years’ experience in forensic accounting, fraud detection and business valuation, Shurek has been retained by attorneys, and others, to perform services in complex litigation settings.
He has applied forensic accounting techniques in bankruptcy matters, where he has represented bankruptcy trustees, creditors’ committees and debtors in assignments such as solvency and preference analysis, and investigations for fraudulent transfers.
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Prescriptive Data, developers of the world’s first operating system for the built environment, announced that it has appointed Sonu Panda as CEO.
Panda will work alongside John J. Gilbert III, Executive Chairman of Prescriptive Data and COO of Rudin Management Company (RMC).
Panda is charged with developing and executing Prescriptive Data’s business and technology strategy.
Prior to Prescriptive Data, Panda most recently served as the co-founder and COO of H.Bloom, a B2B marketplace company, where he developed the company’s operational model, established both product/technology development and process engineering efforts, and managed day-to-day business operations.
Prior to H.Bloom, Panda was VP of On-Demand Sales at CallidusCloud, a leading cloud provider of sales management solutions, driving its transformation from a traditional enterprise software company to a Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) firm.
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Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap specializing in serving institutional and major private real estate investors, announced that Jeffery Daniels has joined as senior vice president and national director of IPA Multifamily
Prior to joining IPA, Daniels led AIG Global Real Estate’s U.S. multifamily investments team.
At AIG, he was responsible for the formulation and execution of the company’s value-add investment strategy and managed its U.S. real estate holdings.

Jeff Daniels

During his 13-year tenure with AIG, he managed over 38,000 multifamily units in more than 20 states valued at over $7 billion, formed over 25 joint ventures with national and regional real estate operators and grew AIG’s multifamily portfolio by 30 percent.
Previously, Daniels served as assistant vice president at Zurich Structured Finance, where he managed a $1.5 billion multifamily portfolio financed with Section 42 low-income housing tax credits.
Daniels received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Hampton University and an M.B.A. in business management from Bloomsburg University.
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Hunton & Williams LLP announced the arrival of F. Robert Brusco as partner in the firm’s New York office.
Brusco has more than 25 years of experience and strong industry relationships in the commercial real estate sector.
Brusco’s practice focuses on the representation of major investment banks, lending institutions, real estate funds, developers, investors and operators in all types of commercial real estate in such matters as acquisitions, dispositions, financing, joint ventures and leasing transactions.
He has negotiated, structured and closed large-scale, complex real estate debt and equity transactions valued at over several billion dollars.
Prior to joining Hunton & Williams, Brusco was a partner in the real estate practice group at Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf. He previously was a managing director at LAMCO LLC.
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Pillsbury announced the arrival of real estate lawyer Andrew Weiner, who joins the firm’s New York office as a partner.
A veteran presence in the real estate industry, Weiner’s practice is global in scope but focuses significantly on transactions in the New York metropolitan area.
He comes to Pillsbury from Dentons.
Weiner’s is joined by counsel Katherine Barger, who also brings a diverse array of experience in commercial and residential real estate deals, including financings and equity transactions.
Their arrival comes on the heels of another high-profile addition to the firm’s New York Real Estate team, Paul Shapses, who joined in January.
Weiner represents domestic and foreign clients in equity and debt transactions. He advises several clients on a portfolio basis, many for longer than two decades, and his noteworthy projects include the relocation of St. Nicholas Church back onto the World Trade Center site after it was destroyed in the 9/11 terror attacks.

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