New Carlton Office Markets $170M in Loans

[IMGCAP(2)]The new managing directors in the L.A. office are Shlomi Ronen, Farzin Emrani and Steven Yazdani, who are marketing the loan portfolio along with managing director Managing Directors Thomas McCarthy. According to Carlton Group chairman Howard L. Michaels, Los Angeles and the West Coast have always been a great source of business for Carlton, which has expanded its loan sale, equity advisory and merchant banking business into L.A.

[IMGCAP(3)]Michaels notes that some of the New York City-based firm's largest transactions have occurred on the West Coast, such as Carlton's $1.5 billion financing of the Cababie family acquisition of the Arden Realty portfolio as well as the acquisition and sale of Bank of America Tower in San Francisco. These two transactions represented more than $3 billion in business.

Ronen, Emrani and Yazdani previously worked together at Century City-based real estate investment banking firm George Smith Partners. They have recently been involved in placing and/or closing more than $2 billion in debt and equity financing.

Carlton's West Coast office will provide all of Carlton's lines of business with a primary focus of transacting loan and REO sales for Carlton's institutional clients. The company says that this is one of its hottest businesses right now because most of its clients are eager to acquire performing and non-performing assets at discounted loan prices.

In addition to selling notes and REO assets for banks, the group will focus on providing Carlton's equity and debt recapitalization services to REITs and other institutional clients who are seeking cash through recapitalizations. Carlton will also access capital for high-net-worth developers and investors who also are looking to recapitalize positions to generate capital to buy their loans back from financial institutions at a discount.