CPE Podcasts

In 2018, Brian Walter co-founded Fairbridge Asset Management with about $3 million raised from family and friends. It was a modest start, but Walter already had plenty of tools in his toolkit. He knew how to run a company, and he’d spent decades building his expertise in fields ranging from institutional credit trading and leveraged finance to managing a family office.

Fast forward to today, and Fairbridge Asset Management, has originated about $1.6 billion on loans and manages $800 million in assets. In this episode, Walter recounts how Fairbridge found its sweet spot in a space that’s below the multibillion-dollar asset managers, he puts it.

You’ll hear why he believes that real estate finance and investment isn’t only financially rewarding—it’s also an opportunity to contribute to the public good.

We also spent a lot of time talking about the dynamics of the real estate capital markets and the challenges of getting deals done. Just a note about the timing of this episode. It was recorded before the Federal Open Market Committee raised the federal funds rate in September, so at the time of this conversation, we still didn’t know what the Fed was going to do.

But Brian’s expectations about the rate hike turned out to be spot on, and his predictions about the impact on real estate finance and investment are insightful, too. Take a listen.

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, our podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live.

For this episode, I'm talking about cardiac health and the built environment with Dr. Bharat Sangani.

As a board-certified cardiologist and founder & chairman of Dallas-based Encore Enterprises, Sangani finds himself downstream and upstream of what he refers to as American real estate's heart problem, which has resulted from changes in space usage and work patterns.

 "Over a period of time, our footprints of the office space, the malls, et cetera, is getting smaller and smaller," Sangani said. "And, as it gets smaller and smaller, people have become very cost efficient and space efficient. And that has reduced our ability to walk a lot. That also has reduced our ability to have meeting spaces."

But research has shown that real estate has the power to improve people's health as well. Sangani and I discuss the study of architectural epedimiology, his health-minded investment approach and his prescription for the industry.

New York City’s built environment is under increasing pressure to adapt to rapidly shifting demand. From life science and health-care conversions to workplace and retail design, flexibility is becoming increasingly important across the city’s commercial real estate landscape.

In this episode of Commercial Design Lab, Perkins&WillManaging Principal Robert Clemens joins CPE’s Beata Lorincz to discuss the future of New York’s life science sector, the challenges of commercial building conversions and the trends shaping the next generation of workplaces.

CPE’s Mikayla Sciortino sits down with CenterSquare’s Rachel Gines to discuss the lessons, mentors and mistakes that shaped her path to leadership.

As loans originated in a lower-rate environment come due, commercial real estate owners are confronting higher borrowing costs, lower valuations and, in many cases, refinancing gaps that can’t be solved with conventional debt alone. Office, hospitality and multifamily are among the property types feeling the greatest strain.

In this episode of FTI Experts’ Hub, CPE Executive Editor Laura Valean sits down with Ingrid Noone and Jahn Brodwin, co-leads of FTI Consulting’s Real Estate Solutions practice, to explore where rescue capital can fit into that equation. They explain why rescue capital is generally better suited to assets with viable fundamentals but troubled capital structures, as well as how it can be used to bridge refinancing gaps, support lease-ups and fund repositionings.

Office recovery continues to gain momentum in New York City and demand is spreading beyond newly built and extensively repositioned properties. The Plaza District has stabilized, activity around Penn Station continues to grow and demand is reaching Midtown South and the Financial District, according to Sage CEO & President Jonathan Kaufman Iger. For existing office buildings, he believes the next competitive phase is shifting from flight to quality to what he calls “flight to experience.” 

In this episode of Step Into My Office, CPE’s Olivia Bunescu talks with Kaufman Iger about how that shift is changing the way New York office properties are operated. While an improved workplace experience cannot resolve an unsustainable capital structure or eliminate the need for physical upgrades, he argues that well-maintained older buildings can compete through consistent service, relevant amenities and stronger support for tenants and their employees.

Here’s what they touched on:

• Why New York’s office recovery is stronger than headlines suggest (01:40)
• Where stronger operations can change an asset’s prospects (04:32)
• From flight to quality to flight to experience (06:00)
• Capital reinvestment and the needs of older buildings (09:52)
• The small details behind hospitality-driven service (14:33)
• Inside Sage’s flagging model and “surprise and delight” element (15:43)
• Measuring the return on amenities and services (20:34)
• How better operations can strengthen tenant loyalty (26:57)
• Looking beyond the first response (29:27)
• Why branded office properties could become more common (35:31)

Flexibility can make a demanding commercial real estate career more sustainable, but the industry still runs heavily on relationship capital: client meetings, informal conversations and the “meeting after the meeting.” If visibility continues to influence who gets the best assignments, promotions and leadership opportunities, could flexibility carry a hidden career cost for women?

In the latest episode of CREW Up, CPE’s Laura Valean and Alison Beddard, CEO of CREW Network, discuss how hybrid work can support women while also potentially stalling their advancement, drawing on CREW Network’s latest research.

Welcome back to Sustainability Street, CPE’s podcast on the intersection of commercial real estate and the world we live in.

For this episode, I'm talking about urban beekeeping with Delaney Dameron, CEO of The Best Bees Company, which is based in Boston.

Beehives on commercial rooftops are spreading, making individual buildings active supporters of their local ecosystems and pollinator research. They can also improve tenant engagement through education, programming and branded honey.

Nature and biodiversity goals can often take a back seat to other sustainability targets like decarbonization and energy efficiency. But Dameron thinks the tide is changing.

 "We're kind of hitting a point in the marketplace where the market's catching up to understanding how critical this work is and how positive and exciting it can be from a business perspective, from a property and community perspective,” Dameron said.

Here are some highlights of our conversation: (2:02) The backstory of Best Bees (2:49) Dameron's journey to CEO (4:21) The benefits of beekeeping (5:53) Where do bees thrive best? (8:25) A great source of data (10:03) The economics of bees (11:17) The practical concerns and the myths
(14:34) Dos and don'ts of beehive hosting
(16:48) The growing role of biodiversity
(18:18) For further information

Frank Forte was the kind of kid who was already fascinated by Wall Street by the time he was about 15. He was a whiz at math, and rather precociously, he also loved reading about options, derivatives and the market. But even back then commercial real estate was on his radar, too. After a few well-timed twists and turns early in his career, he made his path into real estate investment.

Ten years ago, he co-founded a private equity investment firm that he named Lucern Capital Partners, which he runs with David Hansel, the firm's co-founder and managing partner. Since then, he’s been involved in transactions valued at more than $380 million across a wide swath of the East Coast.

Lately he’s been finding attractive opportunities in the burgeoning small-bay industrial market at a time when he believes the larger industrial sector has become overbuilt. Forte discusses the economic climate that's impacting the decision-making of his customers and prospects. He talks about the bid-ask gap and his strategy for underwriting potential deals.

In our conversation, my guest addresses what it takes to build a successful commercial real estate investment business and offers caveats about the traps that new participants can fall into. He emphasizes the importance of taking a clear-eyed view of market opportunities.

And he cautions against buying into the myth that commercial real estate is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. He told me that "what people don't see is (that) to really generate the value, you need to roll up your sleeves, and you need to be a good operator.”

Yet for all the hard work that success demands, Forte doesn’t think of it as being a grind. As he puts it: “I feel like I never work a day in my life, so I'm very lucky.” Take a listen.

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Episode highlights:

• (1:47) Launching a new investment platform
• (4:28) What’s in a company name
• (7:06) Career origins, from Wall Street dreams to private equity success
• (11:05) Finding big opportunities in small-bay
• (16:02) Lucern’s geographic sweet spot
• (17:29) Caveats for new investors: play the long game
• (19:30) The keys to operational excellence
• (23:48) Navigating capital market complexities
• (26:16) How volatility is impacting leasing velocity
• (29:46) Inside the bid-ask gap
• (32:28) Underwriting in an unsettled market
• (34:01) Plan for powering through ’27 and ’28
• (36:32) Executive off the clock: it’s a shore thing

Global commercial real estate sentiment improved in the second quarter, but the recovery story remains far from straightforward. While some markets are showing clearer signs of momentum, others are still grappling with tighter credit conditions, geopolitical uncertainty and sharp differences between prime and secondary assets.

In this episode of RICS Monitor, CPE’s quarterly podcast series tracking global real estate sentiment, Executive Editor Laura Valean speaks with Tarrant Parsons, head of market analytics at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in London, about the latest RICS surveys and what they reveal about the state of the CRE market.