FivePoint taps Irvine Company veteran as CEO

FivePoint Holdings has hired Irvine Company veteran Daniel Hedigan as its new CEO, the latest move in a shakeup of the C-suite for the developer of the Great Park Neighborhoods in Orange County and the Valencia project rising in northern Los Angeles County.

Irvine-based FivePoint appointed Hedigan to take the helm immediately, Seeking Alpha reported. He replaces FivePoint founder Emile Haddad, who stepped down as chief executive and executive chairman in September and took the title of chairman emeritus.

Lennar Corp. Executive Chairman Stuart Miller took the same title at FivePoint when Haddad stepped down from a day-to-day role. Lennar is a cofounder of FivePoint, and owns about 40% of the company, according to its most recent annual report.

Hedigan was most recently president of land sales and home building at Donald Bren’s Irvine Company, the largest developer in Southern California. He was with the Irvine Company from 2013 to 2021, and has 40 years of experience in the residential real estate sector.

“I am delighted to welcome Dan to FivePoint at this pivotal time,” said Stuart Miller, executive chairman, in a statement. “Dan brings with him invaluable expertise from his many years at one of the country’s largest planned community developers.”

The most recent change at publicly traded FivePoint – with a market capitalization of around $900 million – includes the departure of Lynn Jochim as president and chief operating officer. She will step down Feb. 14, and has agreed to assist FivePoint going forward under an advisory agreement for three years.

Her exit follows the resignation in January of Chief Financial Officer Erik Higgins, a vice president and treasurer who said he’d remain in the position through the filing of its next annual report. He was replaced by Leo Kij, vice president and corporate controller, now serving as interim CFO.

In August, FivePoint’s board of directors elected Lennar’s Miller to the same role at FivePoint. At the same time, Jochim was promoted to president

FivePoint was formed in 2009 by Lennar to manage its California projects, with Haddad, previously an executive of the company, as a cofounder. FivePoint was then spun off, and the firm went public in 2017. Lennar has remained its largest stakeholder and currently controls 39 percent of shares.

The leadership change comes as FivePoint — best known as the developer behind the 10,000-home Great Park Neighborhoods in Orange County — is pushing forward with enormous projects throughout California.

Also now going forward is FivePoint Valencia in the Santa Clarita Valley. Formerly called Newhall Ranch, a community of 21,000 homes has been decades in the making.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, a FivePoint property has been embroiled in a legal fight related to the potential release of toxic pollutants at another planned community of several thousand homes at a former Navy shipyard at Hunters Point.

FivePoint is also developing a 7,000-home community called Candlestick Point. Approved plans for that project, on the site of the San Francisco Giants’ former stadium, include more than 1 million square feet of office and retail space and a 220-room hotel.

In Irvine, the Orange County Great Park was envisioned in the mid-2000s as a kind of “Central Park of the West Coast.” The Five Points development is designed around the perimeter of the public park and includes eventual plans for more than 10,000 homes in a half dozen different neighborhoods.

[SA] – Dana Bartholomew

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