As investors looking to buy big portfolio packages face an equity drought at investment banks and other traditional sources of leverage, CBRE’s Capital Markets Finance Group, a New York City-based capital advisory division, has hired Enoch Lawrence, an advisor experienced with balance-sheet lenders and foreign investors, to the position of senior vice president.
Lawrence will raise funds for the purchase of portfolios mostly valued $100 million and higher. He will work with CBRE clients around the world, but will focus on investments in New York City and the tri-state area.
He co-founded the commercial real estate consulting practice at Sandler O’Neill & Partners, where he worked for just under two years, before which he held the position of senior vice president at valuation firm Marshall & Stevens Realty Capital for four years, arranging over $1 billion in senior debt and mezzanine financing. Prior to that, he served as vice president at professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Lawrence has arranged more than $3.5 billion in deals in his 15 years in the business, the largest of which was for a $970 million multifamily housing portfolio containing 24,000 units scattered throughout the Southwest and Southeast.
In addition to drawing from his experience working with investors from the United Arab Emirates and Britain during his work with Sandler O’Neill & Partners, he believes his work with domestic balance-sheet lenders will be a huge asset in his new position.
“With [Sandler O’Neill & Partners], I had the opportunity to work with a large number of community banks across the country,” he said. “And they always have been a large source of capital, but have become more important now with problems in the capital markets, because you’ve got a huge chunk of the pie that’s disappeared.”