MIAMI-Real-estate investment and merchant banking firm Aztec Group has hired Wachovia veteran Kevin Miliffe. Miliffe joins Aztec as a director to help diversify the firm’s interests.

Miliffe brings experience in real estate capital markets, structured finance, and investment transactions. Specifically, he has been responsible for the origination, analysis, and closing of real estate financing and equity transactions exceeding $2.5 billion throughout the US.

Miliffe comes to Aztec from Ft. Lauderdale-based Ironshore Capital, a residential real estate firm funded by a value investment hedge fund. There he served as an investment analyst. Miliffe previously served as an associate at Wachovia Real Estate Capital Markets. He holds an M.B.A in Finance and Real Estate and a M.S. in Management from the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida.

“During his time at Wachovia, Kevin touched every imaginable real estate asset from a capital markets perspective,” Jason Shapiro, managing director at Aztec, tells GlobeSt.com. “Then at Ironshore, he got a chance to look at things from the other side of the table, which fit nicely with the investments we make.”

Miliffe is responsible for originating, underwriting, financing, and investment opportunities. He will work directly with Shapiro and Ezra Katz, chairman of Aztec Group. The firm sees Miliffe’s combined experience in structured finance, CMBS transactions, and private equity real estate investments as critical to developing and implementing successful investment and financing structures of commercial and residential real estate transactions.

Miliffe also expects to help the firm venture into distressed assets. The core mission of Ironshore Capital is to buy distressed notes and properties. “I’ve had extensive experience underwriting portfolios with distressed residential debt and that’s something that we are looking at for Aztec,” Miliffe tells GlobeSt.com. “It might be the right time to start heavily investing in distressed assets and finding capital for those deals.”

Shapiro agrees. Like other shops in town, Aztec has been looking for distressed opportunities for the past two years but has done little investing or funding. “It’s a difficult environment in which to make a deal,” Shapiro says. “Getting the people on the other side of the table to capitulate so the deal makes sense is often the challenge. Kevin brings a different perspective to the table that can help us drive these deals forward.”