Here’s John Cushman with son Jeff at the firm’s ULI party at Trader Vics. John came from NY to start the LA office of Cushman & Wakefield in the late ‘60s and is still based there, now of course co-chairman of the firm. Jeff is an executive managing director based in New York who also worked for the firm in London. C&W is roughly 70% owned by Exor, which also owns Fiat, which owns Ferrari, which is why they were standing in front of a $350k model on display at the entrance.

Our national real estate editor Sibley Fleming sat down with Camden Property Trust CEO Ric Campo at the posh California Club at 538 S. Flower St. Ric tells us the Camden’s Multifamily Value Add fund still has about $200M to deploy (leveraged, that’s about $1.1B); it’s already acquired about $600M through the fund this year, primarily properties off of Main and Main. Development pipeline: about $1B, from high-rise in DC to four-story projects in the ‘burbs. Brand new product is yielding 6.5% return, he says, compared to buying an existing property at a 5% return. Ric’s son, Richard, is a senior at Oregon State, where Ric met his wife, Mo. Richard is also in the same fraternity as dad (Sigma Chi) and lives in the same frat house.

Prudential Mortgage Capital Company president Dave Twardock (they did about $9B in CRE loans last year and plan to exceed that in 2011). It’s not an entirely multifamily lending universe: Dave just authorized a big industrial portfolio loan this week (to be announced). And the loans this year so far are a mix of industrial, office, retail, and multifamily, split 20% to 25% each with a few hotels for good measure (almost all is refis). On the lighter side: Dave has twins, a boy and a girl. His daughter just graduated from college in May and is in DC on a one-year fellowship. And his son sang with the Yale Whiffenpoofs last year and is now back in school, trying to get a job.

And at the Bisnow booth, we snapped AECOM global design, planning and economics EVP Jacinta McCann (based in San Fran) with urban design principal Vaughan Davies. In August, AECOM won for the planning of the Olympic games in Rio. The duo tells us master planning will kick off by year’s end. Little known facts: Jacinta has swum the Escape from Alcatraz race twice. Vaugh just sold his house in the ‘burbs and moved to a loft in downtown LA where he feels like he has a new lease on life.  

Steve Soboroff, former CEO of LA’s high profile Playa Vista development company, hands a Dodgers jacket to CBRE investment sales EVP Tom Bohlinger yesterday after a panel on LA’s future. Why? Earlier this year, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt named Steve vice chairman of the team—until the next day Major League Baseball seized control due to financial stability questions stemming from McCourt’s divorce proceedings. Steve said the jacket’s been lying around and decided to award it to the best question asked of the panel (we actually forget what it was).  

We sat down with HFF vice chairman of the board Mark Gibson who told us that over the last 18 months, the mortgage banking firm has hired nearly 100 people nationwide and has been growing all service lines. The industry was expecting 2011 deal volume to be $200B; Marks thinks it’ll hit between $250B and $300B. Plus foreign banks are selling debt. “There’s the Anglo Irish and the Bank of Ireland,” he points out. “Eastdil and HFF handled each one of those.” Another reason to smile: as of September he and his wife are empty nesters for the first time in 19 years. “Two kids successfully integrated into colleges of big achievement.”

We snapped ULI fall meeting co-chairman and Sares-Regis Group managing director John Hagestad during a relaxed moment the press room. With 6,500 people, this year’s ULI had the largest number since Las Vegas a few years ago, when there were close to 7,000.

And here’s New York-based Ernst & Young global real estate director Howard Roth with daughter Rebecca Devine, who was on the Social Media and Real Estate panel at ULI. Rebecca is principal of Philly-based Maven Communications PR firm. On Howard’s radar: In the past couple of days FASB released a draft of Investment Property Entity accounting, which could require certain real estate companies to report their investments in real estate at fair value as oppossed to historical cost under US GAAP. But let Howard worry for you; this could be years down the road.

We also stopped by Transwestern’s ULI reception at WP 24 at the Ritz Carlton where guests rubbed shoulders with some of the firm’s very top execs: managing director Walter Byrd, Mid-Atlantic region prez Eric Mockler, COO Mark Doran, West region prez George Garfield, CEO Larry Heard, and executive managing director Jonathan Larsen who just repped Aon Corp in a 76,705 SF lease renewal at its namesake building, the 1M SF Aon Center (the second-tallest building in Cali and just five blocks from LA Live) in downtown LA. The landlord, Beacon Capital Partners, was repped in-house by Andy Fishburn.

Atlanta-based Carter's vice chairman Jim Shelton tells us since Carter sold off its brokerage unit to Cassidy Turley, the firm has been focusing on investments, asset management, consulting and development. And right now, Carter is targeting three asset classes: value-add office, urban multifamily, and student housing developments. Jim says Carter has $120M of “very viable” potential purchases, including a couple of urban apartments and a student housing project that could close soon.

Wells Fargo EVP Mike Marino manages the real estate group in the bank’s LA office, which encompasses the Southwest. 90% of Wells Fargo construction loans are apartments. On the other food groups: 60% to 70% are refi and 30% to 40% are new acquisitions. Mike lives in Manhattan Beach with his wife Cheryl and two boys, Scott, 11, and Matt, 17. They stay busy driving the kids to different activities; Scott is in scouting, and of course, both love the beach.

And finally, we stopped by Reznick Group’s booth. (Not only are they a great national sponsor, but they provided a comfy sofa so our editor could kick off her shoes and catch her breath.) Above, Reznick Group’s Jonathan Bartlett, ATL chief Wes Hudson, IDI EVP and COO David Birdwell, Reznick Group’s Ellen Mendelsohn, IDI president Tim Gunter, and Reznick Group’s Cliff Alsberg.