Paint Giant Sherwin Williams Eyeing
Atlanta For HQ Relocation

At the start of each semester, students in the Master of Real Estate Development program at Auburn University gather for a week of seminars and discussions. But a look around the room shows that this is no average graduate program. Among its two dozen enrollees, the program boasts a combined…

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Jim Abdo has been developing in D.C. for over 20 years, but the developer who helped bring Whole Foods to Logan Circle is looking to expand beyond the District for the first time, and his sights are set on North Carolina. 

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The timing of Blackstone’s purchase of Equity Office Properties could hardly have been worse. On 9 February, 2007, it paid $39B for the listed company, using $32B of debt. Two days earlier, HSBC reported losses on a fund it managed that invested in subprime mortgages, and the phrase "credit crunch" started to enter the public consciousness. The financial crisis had just begun.

Blackstone’s purchase of EOP remains the biggest deal in real estate history, and the debt it raised is the biggest financing in history. Many deals struck with 83% leverage at the top of the market saw buyers lose control of their assets.

Deals of that magnitude have the potential to bring down a whole franchise, or see managers spend years recovering the trust of investors. Just ask Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. 

But last week, Blackstone completed a deal to sell the last of the 580 office buildings it acquired when it bought EOP. Rockpoint bought 100 Summer St. in Boston for about $800M. More than 12 years on, what could have been a poisoned chalice has instead seen Blackstone sell the portfolio for a combined $46B, according to The Wall Street Journal, a $7B profit, and triple the $3.5B equity the company originally put into the deal.

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MASSACHUSETTS — Multimillion-dollar waterfront homes, restaurants pairing lobster rolls with $18 cocktails and private jets roaring into the Hyannis airport each summer burnish Cape Cod's image as New England’s playground for the 1%. 

But six parts of the Cape were designated as opportunity zones last year, and some have raised suspicions over whether the area really needs help from a federal program aimed at generating development in low-income areas in need of an economic lift.

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As women in commercial real estate battle gender bias and sexual harassment, they are trying to clear a key hurdle: getting men in the conversation.

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This series profiles men and women in commercial real estate who have profoundly transformed our neighborhoods and reshaped our cities, businesses and lifestyles.  

Brian Ferdinand leads CorpHousing Group, a short-term apartment rental operator. CorpHousing was founded in 2017 and assembles and manages Class-A multifamily throughout the U.S. via partnerships and long-term or master lease agreements with advisory, investment and development firms. As managing partner, he is responsible for spearheading the overall company business vision and strategy.

That strategy currently includes expansion: CorpHousing has offices in New York, Miami and Nashville, and manages units in Columbus, Ohio; Miami; Nashville; Philadelphia; Denver; Seattle; and Washington, D.C., and it is looking to expand to four more cities in 2019.

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