Real Estate Mezzanine Financing Forum

October 10th, 2023
New York

We are pleased to announce that the Real Estate Mezzanine & High Yield Debt Financing Forum, a respected and successful event with multiple iterations behind it, now assumes a new role as part of the larger Global Leaders in Real Estate Summit, taking place on October 10th, 2023, in the vibrant city of New York.

The Global Leaders in Real Estate summit kicks off with engaging plenary sessions in the morning, setting the stage for insightful discussions. In the afternoon, the agenda is divided into three forums, each focusing on specific topics. The Real Estate Mezzanine Financing Forum remains a crucial segment of these, specifically highlighting this vital component of real estate finance.

Aimed at fostering strategic connections between borrowers and lenders, the forum will address current trends, challenges, and potential opportunities within real estate financing, with an emphasis on mezzanine and high-yield debt.

Network with leading:

  • Real estate mezzanine and senior lenders
  • Private debt and credit funds
  • Real estate owners, operators and developers
  • Mortgage REITs
  • Pension funds & endowments
  • Sovereign wealth funds
  • Real estate private equity firms
  • Investment banks
  • Independent Sponsors
  • Law firms & accounting firms

Below is the detailed agenda of the Real Estate Mezzanine & High Yield Debt Financing forum and to access the full summit agenda, please click here.

Register Today

Agenda

12:15 pm - Luncheon Workshop: Top Due Diligence Challenges for Lenders in the ESG Era

  • Disclosure- carbon footprinting (PCAF), climate risks and opportunities- TCFD/ISSB, SEC proposed rule
  • Risk Management- how physical and transition risk data informs lending decision-making, structuring, pricing, etc.
  • Innovation- green/sustainable financing products as opportunities
  • Client/Borrower Relations- building mutually beneficial partnerships on the road to net zero

Noelle Bohlen

Group Product Manager measurabl

Noelle is a dedicated Group Product Manager at Measurabl, where she's driven a series of impactful ESG SaaS and DaaS innovations over the past five years. Prior to joining Measurabl, she held a Senior Product Manager role at VTS in New York—an industry-leading platform for leasing and asset management. Holding a B.S. in Computer Science from Fordham University, Noelle thrives at the intersection of technology and Commercial Real Estate, a passion she nurtures by growing her personal real estate portfolio on Long Island.

Claudine Cohen

VP, ESG Research PIMCO

1:15 pm - Chairperson’s Opening remarks

Daniel C. Reynolds

Partner Cleary Gottlieb

Daniel C. Reynolds’ practice focuses on domestic and international real estate transactions, including the financing, acquisition, and disposition of real property. He has represented clients in the negotiation of joint ventures to acquire, finance, and develop office, retail, hotel, multifamily, and mixed-use properties throughout the United States, and he regularly advises both borrowers and lenders in mortgage and mezzanine financing transactions, including securitized loans, balance sheet loans, bridge loans, and construction loans. He has also represented lenders and borrowers in the workout and enforcement of various financing structures, including mezzanine loan foreclosures. Dan was an associate in Cleary’s New York office from 2000 to 2001, rejoined the firm in 2011, and became partner in 2017.

Tim Groves

Chief Investment Officer Dwight

Tim Groves is Chief Investment Officer at Dwight, a vertically integrated real estate investment management platform with a focus on agency lending, where he oversees strategy and execution for their private Mortgage REIT, Dwight Mortgage Trust as well as a number of separately managed accounts.  Prior to joining Dwight, Mr. Groves was Senior Managing Director and Head of Cantor Commercial Real Estate (CCRE), a direct lender and CMBS primary business.  He joined Cantor after nearly 15 years at Citi where he had led their CRE capital markets coverage of GSE's, REITs, and debt funds during which he originated, structured, and distributed Repo facilities, Agency CMBS and CRE CLO’s.  Mr. Groves holds a BBA in accounting and an MBA from Cornell University.    

1:30 pm - Mezzanine Loans and Preferred Equity: What are active lenders and borrowers dealing with?

  • What are the legal considerations when choosing between mezzanine finance and preferred equity?
  • How do mezzanine deal structures differ from preferred equity structures?
  • What are the key considerations for multi-lender deals?
  • How would the proposed New York Bill imposing mortgage recording taxes affect mezzanine debt and preferred equity in
  • Real estate transactions?
Moderator

Dan Berman

Partner Kramer Levin

Daniel Ross Berman counsels developers, investors, lenders and operators in a range of real estate transactions, including acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, development deals, preferred equity investments, loans, leases, recapitalizations and restructurings. His work spans hospitality, industrial, health care, entertainment, retail, office, multifamily and mixed-use properties.

Dan has a national practice that includes acquisitions, dispositions and joint venture development deals across the country as well as a localized practice with an emphasis on complex development deals. For example, Dan is currently handling numerous redevelopment projects in New York City involving various religious and charitable institutions, each with different deal structures. These include ground leasing the land during development and dividing the ownership of the completed building between the developer and the institution by converting the property to a commercial condominium.  

Dan is a member of Kramer Levin’s Pro Bono, Ethics and Technology committees.

Drew Fung

Head of Debt Investment Group Clarion Partners

Drew D. Fung, equity owner and Managing Director, is the co-Portfolio Manager for Clarion’s

Debt Investment Fund. He oversees the Firm’s subordinate debt investment activities in various types of commercial real estate debt instruments, including mezzanine loans, B-notes and preferred equity interests. Drew is a member of the Debt Investment Committee, which approves all of the Firm’s financing activities, and a member of Clarion’s ESG Committee and Subcommittee on Resilience. Drew joined Clarion Partners in 2012 and began working in the real estate industry in 1987. He has comprehensive commercial real estate experience, including more than 20 years focused on subordinate debt that includes all property types and capital structures. He is a former Chair of a Urban Land Institute (ULI) Urban development/Mixed-Use Council, a member of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC) Board of Governors, a frequent speaker at industry events and has provided expert testimony to the U.S. Senate Banking Sub Committee regarding the impact of regulation on commercial real estate financing markets.

Boots Dunlap

CEO & Co-Founder RRA Capital

Boots Dunlap has over 15 years of experience consulting on and managing credit assets for many of the largest banks, insurance companies, CMBS servicers and private credit firms, dating back to before the 2008 Great Recession. Since co-founding RRA, he has overseen the origination and management of more than $1.3B of bridge loans and has also consulted for lending clients on $2.4B of distressed commercial real estate. Boots oversees the investment strategy and strategic direction of RRA. He is a member or has been a member of the Urban Land Institute, Mortgage Bankers' Association, Commercial Real Estate Finance Council, the National Association of Office & Industrial Properties, and various other industry organizations. Prior to co-founding RRA, Boots served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, where he completed multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning him the Bronze Star, two Meritorious Service Medals, Combat Infantryman's Badge, Ranger Tab, Airborne Wings, and numerous other distinguished leadership decorations. He graduated from the University of Virginia and holds a certification as a Commercial Investment Member.

John Randall

Partner PCCP LLC

John Randall joined PCCP in December 2009 and leads East Coast originations for the Firm out of New York. Since joining PCCP, Mr. Randall has originated over 100 equity and debt transactions aggregating in excess of $2 billion including hotel, retail, office, condo, multi-family and industrial investments and including senior debt, mezzanine, preferred equity and joint venture equity.  Prior to PCCP, Mr. Randall spent six years and invested over $1 billion in real estate debt and preferred equity positions within the Real Estate Private Equity group of Lehman Brothers. Prior to Lehman Brothers, Mr. Randall was a Vice President with Deutsche Bank, originating and underwriting mezzanine investments for the DB Real Estate Mezzanine Investment Funds. Mr. Randall's experience also includes work at Daiwa Securities originating and structuring conduit loans for their CMBS group.  Mr. Randall started his career with Arthur Andersen and Jones Lang Wootton where he valued over $1 billion of real estate in the U.S. and Latin America. Mr. Randall has over 25 years of real estate experience and holds a B.A. in Economics from Bowdoin College, magna cum laude, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Nitin Jagga

Vice President Goldman Sachs

Clark Briner

Founder & Principal Revere Capital

2:00 pm - Panel Discussion: The Current Landscape of Mezzanine Lending: Valuations and Return Expectations

Today’s scarce lending environment makes mezzanine debt a necessity – but are these the same mezzanine loans we’ve seen before? This panel will explore:

  • What is driving the growing demand for mezzanine capital in the face of portfolio declines and illiquidity in the market?
  • How are mezzanine loans priced and structured differently in the current environment?
  • What are the return expectations for mezzanine loans in today's market?
  • What are the legal concerns associated with mezzanine lending in the current environment?
  • How do investors and borrowers approach mezzanine lending in the current landscape?
Moderator

Tim Davis

Chair White and WIlliams

Tim Davis is Chair of the Business Department and a Partner in the Real Estate and Finance Groups at White and Williams LLP. He has over 25 years of experience representing investment funds, insurance companies, and banks in a wide variety of sophisticated real estate finance transactions, including first mortgage loans, participations, mezzanine loans, "B" notes and preferred equity investments. He has extensive experience in the areas of intercreditor, co-lender, and participation agreements. In 2017, Tim was elected as a Fellow in the American College of Mortgage Attorneys. He is ranked by Chambers USA as a Leading Lawyer in Pennsylvania Real Estate Finance, is AV® Preeminent rated by the Martindale-Hubbell peer review rating system, and has been recognized by “Best Lawyers in America” since 2016. He received his BA, MA, and JD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Nailah Flake‑Brown

Managing Partner Investments Brookfield Asset Management

Stephen R. Quazzo

Co-Founder and CEO Pearlmark

Stephen R. Quazzo is Pearlmark’s Co-Founder, CEO, and Chair of the firm’s Management Committee and the PEP II Investment Committee. From 1991 to 1996, Mr. Quazzo served as President of Equity Institutional Investors, Inc., a subsidiary of investor Sam Zell’s private holding company, Equity Group Investments, Inc. Mr. Quazzo was responsible for raising equity capital and performing various portfolio management services in connection with the firm’s real estate investments, including institutional opportunity funds and public REITs. Prior to joining the Zell organization, Mr. Quazzo was in the Real Estate Department of Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was a Vice President responsible for the firm’s real estate investment banking activities in the Midwest.

Mr. Quazzo holds undergraduate and MBA degrees from Harvard University, where he has served as a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors for the business school and as an Alumni Association Director for the college. He is a Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, past Trustee and Chairman of the ULI Foundation, a member of the Pension Real Estate Association, and a licensed real estate broker in Illinois. Mr. Quazzo is a public company director of Marriott Vacations Worldwide (NYSE: VAC) and Phillips Edison & Co. (NASDAQ: PECO). For 22 years (1994-2016), he also served as a director of Starwood Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: HOT), which in 2016 merged with Marriott International (NYSE: MAR). Mr. Quazzo serves on a number of non-profit boards, including: Rush University Medical Center, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Endowment, the Chicago Parks Foundation, and Deerfield Academy.

Ash Baraghoush

Managing Director Pacific Urban Investors

Mr. Baraghoush serves as a Managing Director at Pacific Urban Investors. In this role, he is responsible for identifying and evaluating Joint Venture Equity opportunities across the Western US and Preferred Equity opportunities across the Western and Eastern US for multifamily recapitalization, value-add and development projects. Prior to joining Pacific Urban, he served as a Vice President at Ares Management responsible for West Coast investments on behalf of public vehicles, separate accounts, and closed-end funds. Mr. Baraghoush began his career at Bank of America in its Global Corporate Investment Banking division.

Mr. Baraghoush holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics, with a minor in Accounting, from UCLA. He also serves as a Board Member of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and is an active member of the Make-A-Wish Real Estate Chapter.

Amanda Gray

Director, Capital Markets Invesco Real Estate

Amanda Gray is a Director of Capital Markets at Invesco Real Estate.

Amanda began her investment career in 2016 and joined Invesco Real Estate in 2018. Prior to joining Invesco, she worked in the real estate banking group at Wells Fargo, where she focused on balance sheet debt originations.

Amanda earned a Business Administration degree with a minor in Psychology from the University of Southern California.

2:30 pm - Panel Discussion: Structured and Mezzanine Debt

  • What are the current fundraising and investment prospects for structured and mezzanine debt across the capital stack?
  • What are the emerging asset types that are gaining traction in the market and how are lenders and borrowers approaching them?
  • What are the key considerations for lenders and borrowers when structuring financing for these alternative property types?
Moderator

Gary Zimmerman

SVP & Chief Underwriting Counsel Fidelity National Title Group UCCPlus Division

Manish Shah

Senior Managing Director Palladius Capital Management

Manish Shah is a Senior Managing Director at Palladius Capital Management, where he focuses on real estate investment origination and management and oversees legal matters for the firm. Mr. Shah is also a member of the firm’s investment committee and helps to lead the debt and income funds for Palladius.

Mr. Shah has decades of experience investing in real estate across the capital stack. Previously, Mr. Shah served as a principal and manager of numerous real estate investments, including control equity, preferred equity, mezzanine and senior debt investments. His prior experience includes the turnaround of a publicly traded company (acquired NYSE: EMR), where he was responsible for business and real estate acquisitions and divestitures. He began his career in the investment banking divisions of Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley.

Mr. Shah has served on or currently serves on the Board of Advisors for Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, Harvard’s Real Estate Alumni Board and the boards of public and private technology companies.

Robert Friedman

Founder & Managing Principal Tiberias Capital

Robert has over twenty five years of experience in finance, real estate and management. He was a Principal at Lanesborough Partners and a Managing Director at Bankers Capital Realty Advisors, both New York commercial real estate firm which specialized in placing debt and equity on behalf of developers, owners and operators of substantial properties and has arranged several billion dollars of financing since its inception. Robert held a senior role on the international finance desk at Oppenheimer & Co in New York and began his career with Paramount Capital. He currently serves as the Chief Business Development Officer of FullStack Modular, a leading modular innovator in the design, manufacture, and construction of mid- and high-rise multifamily buildings, hotels, and student housing in urban environments. He was also a Co-Founder of TechPrefab, a modular developer that uses a proprietary, cloud-based. construction platform for the design, procurement, material delivery and installation of homes, multifamily and commercial buildings.  Robert received his MBA from Yale University's School of Management with concentration in Finance, Real Estate & Marketing  and earned a BA in Economics from Yeshiva University.

Nicholas Hoffman

Partner Haynes Boone

Nick Hoffman is a partner in the Real Estate Practice Group in the New York office of Haynes and Boone. Nick regularly represents investment banks, commercial banks, and foreign and domestic private equity clients in sophisticated real estate transactions, including structured loans, mezzanine loans, construction financing, preferred equity investments and joint ventures. Nick devotes a significant portion of his practice to capital markets and syndication work in the debt space including note sales, intercreditor arrangements and participations. Nick also has experience with debt restructurings work-outs, and single asset and portfolio acquisitions and dispositions.

Before joining the firm, Nick was a senior executive with the Ruben Companies, a Manhattan based developer, and was involved in all aspects of the management and development of its office and residential portfolio in New York, Washington, D.C. and Boston.

Shaunak Tanna

Executive Director PGIM Real Estate

Shaunak Tanna is an executive director at PGIM Real Estate. Based in New York, Shaunak is responsible for sourcing, underwriting, and structuring real estate investments including senior and mezzanine loans and preferred equity transactions for the eastern U.S. 

Prior to joining PGIM Real Estate, Shaunak was Head of Structured Investments for Basis Investment Group, LLC, where he was responsible for the firm’s mezzanine and bridge lending, and originated a range of investments across stabilized, development and transitional value-add properties. Before Basis, he was with Terra Capital Partners, LLC and its affiliate The Greenwich Group International, LLC. 

Shaunak has a Bachelor of Commerce in accounting and taxation from the University of Mumbai and a Master of Business Administration in real estate from Baruch College. Shaunak is also a Chartered Accountant, and an active member of the Advisory Board for Steven Newman Real Estate Institute of Baruch College.

Sebastian Post

Managing Director & Co-Head of Investments Lionheart Strategic Management

Sebastian Post is Managing Director and Co-Head of Investments for Lionheart Strategic Management, LLC, the fund management affiliate of Fisher Brothers, and is responsible for sourcing new investments, capital raising, and management of operations. Since joining Fisher Brothers in 2011, Mr. Post has been involved in the creation of the fund management affiliate which has raised over $1 billion from investors. Mr. Post has been involved in the execution of over $2.0 billion of real estate equity investments and over $4.0 billion of real estate credit investments throughout the United States. Mr. Post received a Bachelor of Science in Finance at the University of Central Florida and received a Masters of Science in Real Estate Finance & Investment from New York University.

3:00 pm - Closing Keynote Interview

Interviewer

Dan Berman

Partner Kramer Levin

Daniel Ross Berman counsels developers, investors, lenders and operators in a range of real estate transactions, including acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, development deals, preferred equity investments, loans, leases, recapitalizations and restructurings. His work spans hospitality, industrial, health care, entertainment, retail, office, multifamily and mixed-use properties.

Dan has a national practice that includes acquisitions, dispositions and joint venture development deals across the country as well as a localized practice with an emphasis on complex development deals. For example, Dan is currently handling numerous redevelopment projects in New York City involving various religious and charitable institutions, each with different deal structures. These include ground leasing the land during development and dividing the ownership of the completed building between the developer and the institution by converting the property to a commercial condominium.  

Dan is a member of Kramer Levin’s Pro Bono, Ethics and Technology committees.

Cary Carpenter

Managing Director - Head of CRE Capital Markets, Trading & Syndication Starwood Capital

Cary has 20+ years of experience in different facets of commercial real estate ranging from structured finance to design and development.  Currently Cary is a Managing Director of CRE Capital Markets, Trading & Syndication at Starwood Capital.  His current responsibilities including pricing, structuring and capital commitment for the acquisition and sale of CRE debt for the Starwood REIT.  He is also responsibility financing and sales efforts of whole loans via private sales and the CMBS market as well as managing the warehouse lines for the REIT.

Prior to joining Starwood Cary was a Partner at Coastal Capital (2009 to 2010) where he managed the process of acquiring performing, sub-performing and non-performing CRE debt.  From 2004 to 2008 Cary was an Executive Vice President with Countryside CRE Finance and was responsible for the pricing, structuring and sale of all fixed and floating rate high yield commercial real estate debt.  

Prior to joining Countrywide Cary was a Partner at Coastal Capital Partners; a Managing Director for Precept Corporation, Vice President of Structured Finance at Nomura Asset Capital; Senior Consultant at Deloitte and Touche; Project Designer for The SWA Group and Sasaki Associates.

Cary earned an M.S. in Real Estate Development and Finance from Columbia University in 1993 and a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Kansas State University in 1988.

3:30 pm - Roundtables

Choose your topic for an interactive discussion with fellow attendees on the most pressing issues facing the industry. Network at small tables and participate in lively topical conversation. This format provides an excellent opportunity to meet your industry peers in a unique setting.

 

4:30 pm - Cocktail Reception & One-to-One Networking

 

Register Today

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