WASHINGTON, DC-Minneapolis-based NorthMarq Capital Inc. is adding an investment sales component to its finance and capital markets platform. It will be spearheading this national initiative from its DC office.
Chip Ryan, a 28-year industry veteran, is heading up the investment sales division. Most recently he was a broker with Cushman & Wakefield in Washington, DC.
The new division has nothing tangible in its pipeline--at least nothing on which Ryan would comment--but he did tell GlobeSt.com that the new office is in talks with clients and hopes to have deals inked in a matter of weeks. His group's mission is straightforward: building a link between the investment sales and services group and the capital markets group.
A typical scenario--one in which in fact unfolded at a recent lunch with a potential client--would be to advise a firm on how to most favorably restructure its debt schedule. "This particular firm has debt set to expire at different points, some of which is favorable, some of which is near term." One solution may be to sell a multi-tenant building that the company has stabilized since it acquired it, Ryan says.
Pricing in the commercial real estate markets is still unpredictable, he says. "For core or core plus trophy buildings, the pricing should remain fairly constant. Cap rates may have adjusted downward slightly but they will probably recover a little bit because there is a tremendous amount of capital still available for those types of deals."
More difficult to navigate are the capital solutions for buildings that are value added opportunities. It is in this space that the group will focus, Ryan says.
NorthMarq is planning to create additional positions in investment sales in other markets across the country, which, according to Edward Padilla, NorthMarq's CEO, "addresses an industry trend toward providing sales with finance and capital markets." The brokers will be working with NorthMarq's origination platform of some 125 finance professionals. "We are committed to growing our investment sales capacity nationwide," Padilla says.
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
