Oak Brook-based commercial real estate giant Inland Real Estate Group is going through another leadership shakeup.
Matthew Fries, formerly of financial services and wealth management firm Cetera Financial Group, was named CEO of Inland Investments, a Tuesday press release said. Inland Investments is the arm of the Inland Real Estate Group that serves retail investors.
Fries will be the fourth person to hold the position since early 2024. He will be in charge of the company’s public and private investment platforms and retail investor-focused offerings. In his prior role, Fired served as Cetera’s head of investment products.
He will take over for Inland Investments’ interim CEO Ella Neyland and will report to Tony Chereso, who is CEO of the Inland family of companies, known collectively as Inland Real Estate Group, according to the release.
Neyland will remain in a leadership role as CEO of the Inland REIT, IPC Alternative Real Estate Income Trust.
Neyland stepped in as interim CEO of Inland Investments when its former CEO, Keith D. Lampi, resigned in October. Lampi had been with the company since 2001 and held the position of Inland Investments CEO for nearly two years.
It’s unclear why Lampi left the company, although SEC filings indicate his resignation was “not due to any disagreement with the company, its advisor or any of its and their affiliates,” the filing read.
During Lampi’s tenure, Inland Real Estate Group restructured much of its executive ranks to consolidate operations among Inland Private Capital Corporation (the company’s tax-deferred investment arm), Inland Venture Partners (the company’s private equity arm), and Inland Securities Corporation (the company’s dealer manager for Inland investment vehicles). The effort was part of Lampi’s long-term vision for the company, a prior press release stated.
Lampi had taken over the Inland Investments CEO position from Mitchell Sabshon, a longtime Inland executive who retired in early 2024. Around the same time, Inland Real Estate Group co-founder and CEO Daniel Goodwin died and was succeeded by Chesero.
A month prior to that, co-founder and CEO of Inland’s acquisitions arm, Joseph Cosenza, died as well. He was succeeded by his son Mark Cosenza and longtime Inland executive Matthew Tice.
The Inland family of companies is one of the country’s largest real estate investment firms with $125 billion in transactions since its founding in 1968. It currently employs over 1,200 people and operates in 49 states, according to its website.
New York-based DRA Advisors acquired a huge Inland business line in 2016, when it assumed the firm’s 132-property, $2.3 billion real estate portfolio concentrated on Midwest shopping centers, which operated under the IRC Retail Centers banner.
DRA over the last few years has shed a notable portion of the Midwest portfolio, worth an estimated $540 million.