NEWPORT BEACH, CA-KBS Capital Advisors has hired Shep Wainwright as a SVP to identify acquisitions on behalf of KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT in the Northeast US. Wainwright, who will be based in the firm's local Newport Beach offices, will also assist with asset-management assignments for the REIT on a nationwide basis.
Wainwright's role will be separate and distinct from the acquisition and asset-management activities of the KBS Realty Advisors team. He will be responsible for identifying, acquiring and managing debt and opportunistic acquisitions for the REIT.
“KBS has acquired a number of great assets around the country,” Wainwright tells GlobeSt.com. “I intend to work with the deep set of relationships I have in the Northeast to help this group continue its current success.”
He adds that in identifying acquisitions for the REIT, he will seek investments that are opportunistic by nature. “Typically these will require some kind of lease-up or capital infusion as a strategy to get the asset to stabilization.”
Joining KBS from Savanna Real Estate Fund II LP, a Northeast-focused opportunity fund where he spent seven years, Wainwright most recently served as managing director for acquisitions and asset management. In that role, he managed a team of asset managers running the daily operations for a number of Savanna's portfolio properties totaling approximately 3.1 million square feet. Before that, he was a co-founder of the restaurant company Cosi Inc., where he developed the chain into a nationally recognized brand with more than 90 restaurants in 11 states.
“We are very pleased to have Shep join our team,” said KBS co-partner and CEO of the firm's Strategic Opportunity REIT Keith Hall in a prepared statement. “Shep has a keen understanding of the markets and knows where to look in order to find the opportunities we are currently looking for.”
GlobeSt.com was unable to reach Wainwright before deadline to discuss his goals in his new position and the various features he looks for when identify acquisitions for REITs.
As GlobeSt.com reported in June, KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT has purchased the Westmoor Center, a six-building class-A office complex totaling 612,890 square feet in the Denver submarket of Westminster, CO, for $86 million.
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
