MULTIFAMILY INFLUENCER: Moran & Co.

Running Moran & Co. is a team comprised of (clockwise, from top left) Founder & Co-Chairman Thomas F. Moran; Mary Ann King, Co-Chairman & West Managing Partner; and regional Managing Partners Peter Evans (Midwest), Paul Harris (Southwest), Sean Henry (Southeast), Randal Howard (Mid-Atlantic) and Jeff Williams (Pacific Northwest).

Since the inception of its third party services arm, Moran & Co. has represented owners in the sale or equity capitalization of $34.5 billion in multifamily transactions. Since 2012, Moran’s transactions have totaled $23.05 billion, including $17.4 billion of income property sales, $4.9 billion of equity placement for existing and development deals, and $744 million of land sales. Of these transactions, more than 50 involved assets valued in excess of $100 million.

Given its success, it’s natural to ask how the company got to this position. The story starts in 1972, when Thomas F. Moran, the company’s founder and co-chairman, began raising equity for apartment development via limited partnerships, for many of which he served as general partner. About a decade later, Mary Ann King, now co-chairman and West managing partner, left a position with Continental Illinois Bank to join Moran in sourcing investment opportunities, raising equity, structuring joint ventures and securing mortgage financing for what was by then a growing enterprise.

Fast forward to 1986—they had funded construction of more than 15,000 apartment units. 1986 was also the year that the income tax laws were changed to be less favorable to real estate ownership and while many owners saw little choice but to surrender their ownership interests to their lenders, Moran and King worked for several years to restructure each of their partnerships, with the goal of maintaining ownership and recovering their investors’ equity. Since that time, approximately 9,000 of these units have been sold, at a profit, and approximately 6,000 more are still owned by the original partnerships.