Stephen Quazzo

A protégé of late industry titan Sam Zell, Quazzo has evolved his firm into a vertically integrated player backed by global insurance giant Generali. Quazzo’s Pearlmark, a private equity real estate firm, manages $2.5 billion in assets with a focus on mezzanine debt for big commercial real estate properties.

Quazzo launched the firm — then called Transwestern Investment Company — in 1996 after a five-year stint running Sam Zell’s Equity Institutional Investors and an earlier tenure in Goldman Sachs’ real estate investment banking division. He rebranded the company to Pearlmark in 2011 after buying out his original partners, and pivoted investment strategy toward multifamily and industrial assets.

Today, Pearlmark deploys capital through both equity and lending. The firm has issued nearly 200 mezzanine loans since 2001. After global insurance firm Generali’s acquisition of a 55 percent stake in Pearlmark in 2024, the firm expanded into senior lending.

“The attraction of being both in the debt and the equity side of the business is that I think it makes you smarter in each area,” Quazzo said. “If you’re a borrower, that’s going to make you a better lender. As a lender, the fact that you’re an equity investor makes you smarter as well.”

In the next three years, Quazzo said he aims to double the assets under management to $5 billion.

Quazzo sits on the boards of Marriott Vacations Worldwide and Phillips Edison & Company and is a trustee of the Urban Land Institute. He also serves on the board of Rush University Medical Center.

— Caleb McCullough