Firm Hires Leader for Development Financing

HOUSTON-Real estate veteran Thomas O. McNearney III has joined Transwestern as executive managing director of development and investment. The Trammell Crow Co. alumnus is leading the capital drive for Transwestern's development projects nationwide.

McNearney, who is the first to hold this position, will oversee the department, which consists of three people in Dallas. He says no more hires are planned for the immediate future. "Ultimately, we'll grow and need more employees, but right now we're working efficiently and keeping overhead low," he says. The new team leader also gets a seat on the board of directors.

"As our development pipeline and activity has grown so has our need to add additional internal capital markets expertise," said Larry P. Heard, Transwestern's president and CEO in a prepared statement. "Tom McNearney brings a seasoned perspective in structured finance and deal engineering that will add value across the Transwestern platform."

While McNearney's immediate job is to arrange advantageous project and structured financing, his ultimate goal is a more programmatic and streamlined approach. "We can be more efficient than doing one-off financing," he tells GlobeSt.com. "But we need between $50 million and $100 million of similar product type in the same markets for that to be effective."

McNearney goes on to say that Transwestern's development pipeline now totals $500 million so it's well within range of financing strategy. Although financing is already in place for the firm's 13 projects, McNearney says more projects are in the pipeline. If the proposed projects stay on schedule, he anticipates the first financings will go into place as early as the fourth quarter.

Before Transwestern, McNearney was senior managing director with TCC's investment management group, where his duties entailed debt and equity structuring to creating funds. McNearney also served an 11-year stint with Wallenstein/Grubb & Ellis, where he was an investment banker.