Guggenheim, Pillar Launch Affordable Platform

NEW YORK CITY-Guggenheim Commercial Real Estate Finance LLC and Guggenheim Partners affiliate Pillar Multifamily LLC have hired Andrew Weil and Justin Ginsberg to head up a newly launched affordable housing division. Weil and Ginsberg, who have joined GCREF as managing directors, will be based here and in San Francisco.

The team will be jointly responsible for building, managing and growing the platform for GCREF and Pillar. According to a release, they’ll oversee the financing of affordable multifamily properties through Fannie Mae, FHA and Guggenheim Partners’ proprietary life insurance company capital; deploy conventional equity to preserve affordable properties; and develop new financing products to meet the needs of developers and investors alike in the affordable housing space. Weil and Ginsberg will report to Anand Gajjar, CEO of Pillar Multifamily, which Guggenheim Partners formed in 2010, not long after it launched GCREF and hired Robert Brennan Jr. to run it.