Mourners are attending a mass this morning for Keith Barket, the top global real estate executive at investment firm Angelo, Gordon, who died last week at age 49. Barket, a senior managing director at Angelo, Gordon and the head of the firm’s worldwide real estate activities, died of stomach cancer Dec. 22, according to the Wall Street Journal. Barket, along with colleague Adam Schwartz, was ranked 30 among New York real estate’s Power 100 by the Observer. TRD [more]

From the October issue: New York City is at a peculiar crossroads. For months, investors have
marshaled unprecedented amounts of capital, salivating at the prospect
of snapping up distressed properties. “We’re fortunate this cycle to
have the most dry powder in our
history,” Blackstone Group president Tony James said last month at the
Barclays Capital Global Financial Services Conference, which was held
in Manhattan. The firm has about $28 billion in unspent capital, he
said. About $12 billion of that is earmarked for real estate. “We’re
just beginning what will be the best period in decades for private
investing,” he said. Dan Fasulo, a managing director at Real Capital
Analytics, estimated
that $50 billion has been raised and is ready to be deployed into
distressed real estate. Paradoxically, investors have found very little
worth buying so far, in large part because banks continue to hold
troubled loans on their books, hoping conditions will improve. [more]