Instructor
Steven H. Ott
Crosland Professor of Real Estate and Development
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC
Steven Ott holds the appointment of John Crosland, Sr. Distinguished Professor of Real Estate and Development at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is also the Director of the Center for Real Estate at UNC Charlotte.
At UNC Charlotte, Dr. Ott has developed and operates a real estate finance and development concentration at the MBA level. Steve’s academic research focuses on topics such as the financial analysis of real estate development decisions, applications of option pricing to real estate valuation, the economics of public policy and real estate, Real Estate Investment Trusts, mortgage loan pricing and mortgage-backed securities. His articles have appeared in journals such as the
Journal of Financial Economics,
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis,
Journal of Banking and Finance,
Financial Management,
Journal of Urban Economics,
Real Estate Economics and the
Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics.
He serves on the editorial boards of
Real Estate Economics and the
Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management, and is a board member of the Real Estate Research Institute. He has served as a consultant to many investment banking, real estate advisory and real estate development firms.
Faculty for this workshop will include additional industry and academic experts to be announced.
Stephen R. Blank
Senior Resident Fellow for Real Estate Finance
The Urban Land Institute, Washington, D.C.
Blank joined ULI in 1998 as the first senior resident fellow for real estate finance. From 1993 to 1998, Blank was a managing director, real estate investment banking, at CIBC Oppenheimer Corp. in New York City, where he was responsible for structuring public and private offerings of real estate equity and debt securities, and advising on mortgage financing of income-producing commercial property, mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations. Previously, Blank had served as managing director of the financial services group at Cushman & Wakefield Inc. and as managing director of the real estate investment banking group at Kidder, Peabody & Company, both in New York City. Blank is a member of the American Society of Real Estate Counselors (CRE designation) and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.
Andrea J. Boyack
Visiting Associate Professor, George Washington University Law School
Of Counsel, Reed Smith LLP
Andrea Boyack has practiced in the area of real property for 14 years, and her diverse legal background includes private practice work in corporate finance, real estate development and capital markets. Over the past few years, Professor Boyack has taught Real Estate Transactions, Real Estate Finance, Property, Contracts, and Public International Law at George Washington University Law School, George Mason University School of Law and Catholic University Columbus School of Law.
Professor Boyack is counsel with Reed Smith and previously was in-house as Regional Counsel to Toll Brothers, Inc., a national development company. Prior to that appointment, Professor Boyack practiced corporate and real estate law in both New York City and Washington, D.C. with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, Goodwin Proctor and O’Melveny & Meyers.
Professor Boyack earned her J.D. at University of Virginia School of Law and holds an advanced degree in international law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Professor Boyack has written articles for Virginia Builder, various ABA publications and the Virginia Journal of International Law. She is currently researching and writing in the area of comparative community governance law.
Jim Clayton, Ph.D.
Vice President - Research
Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers LLC
Jim Clayton is the Vice-President of Research at Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers LLC, a Hartford, CT based registered investment advisor with approximately $9 billion of private and public real estate under management. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the real estate program in the School of Business at the University of Connecticut. At Cornerstone, he is responsible for monitoring and forecasting real estate investment and capital market trends, and delivering a variety of applied research and strategic thought pieces to the firm’s leadership and investor clients. Prior to joining Cornerstone in December 2008, Dr. Clayton served for two years as the Director of Research at the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA), a major trade group representing firms in the institutional real estate investment industry. He led PREA’s research efforts through original research, coordination of sponsored external research, and participation in educational and investor outreach activities. He also wrote a regular Capital Markets column in the PREA Quarterly magazine, and was a co-editor of the special issue of The Journal of Portfolio Management devoted to real estate.
Jim has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Queen’s University, an MA degree in Economics from the University of Western Ontario and a Ph.D. degree from the University of British Columbia.
James O. Erwin
Senior Vice President
Eastdil Secured
Jay Erwin joined Eastdil Secured, LLC in 2000 and is a Senior Vice President in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. Since joining the firm, Jay has been involved in the closing of approximately 50 commercial real estate transactions ranging in value from $13 million to $270 million for individual deals, and $220 million to $2 billion for portfolio deals. Prior to joining Eastdil Secured, Jay spent two years at Wells Fargo Bank, in the Commercial Mortgage Origination division. Jay graduated from the University of Virginia in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and in 2005 earned a Master of Science in Real Estate from the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. He is a resident of the District of Columbia.
Jim Korniek
Managing Member
Realty Recapitalization Advisors, LLC
Jim Korinek advises property owners on strategies for financings, recapitalizations, and workouts at Realty Recap Advisors. He is skilled in solving complex real estate debt and equity needs, structuring and re-structuring financing instruments, and evaluating the options of owners, partners, and borrowers at various points in the capital markets cycle.
Jim developed an understanding of the real estate capital markets while active through three industry cycles in real estate debt and equity investments. His experience covers the gamut of conventional and bridge loans, “A/B” notes, equity participation mortgages, joint ventures, and acquisitions. Having completed transactions in 34 states, he has extensive contacts nationally among both capital users and providers.
Mr. Korinek has an insider’s perspective on both the providers and users of real estate capital based on his experience as a lender, institutional equity investor, and the chief investment officer for two entrepreneurial property firms. His knowledge spans a wide spectrum of assets with a career portfolio including more than 160 transactions ($2.7 billion) covering office, industrial, R&D, retail, residential, medical, and hospitality. Jim also has asset management and debt workout experience honed over prior industry downturns.
Jim’s previous positions have included:
Managing Director of Commercial Real Estate at NewStar Financial, a publicly-traded finance company - At NewStar, Jim originated, structured, and serviced a portfolio of highly structured bridge loan investments. He helped develop a strategy and underwriting guidelines appropriate for managing the risk-return dynamic when implementing a real estate lending initiative during a period of capital surplus;
Chief Investment Officer of both The Ashforth Company and of Koll ENSR Environmental Realty - At both of these firms, he implemented niche equity joint venture initiatives seeking superior risk-adjusted returns in transition or value-add assets. He created sophisticated bridge debt and equity capital structures to fund each of these higher yield investments; and,
Senior Vice President of AEW Capital Management - Jim focused on structured real estate debt investments as well as selected equity opportunities. He was especially active in structuring A/B notes to re-capitalize assets in the mid- 1990’s prior to the broad recovery of the real estate capital markets. Before joining AEW in 1993, Jim developed a sound foundation in real estate capital markets and investing with more than fifteen years of experience in institutional real estate investments.
Jim is a member the Real Estate Finance Association and NAIOP (Capital Markets Forum). He holds a BA from the University of Rochester and a Master of Planning from Harvard University (concentration in real estate, housing and community development). Jim can be reached at
jimk@realtyrecapadvisors.com.
Carolyn PianinSenior Consultant at Focus Management Group
Ms. Pianin started her career doing workouts at Shearson Lehman Hutton in the late 1980s, as part of the Capital Preservation and Restructuring Group (“CPR”). In 1992 she joined AIG Global Real Estate as an Asset Manger. There she was also involved in the underwriting and workouts of RTC loan portfolios, as she was part of the AIG/Ontra joint venture that purchased over $700 million in RTC portfolios. Later in her career, Carolyn worked on structuring DIP and POR loans for the National Restructuring Group at GE Capital.
Ms. Pianin was most recently a Vice President at Square Mile Capital, responsible for the asset management for a variety of real estate investments and platforms. Prior to joining Square Mile, Ms. Pianin served as Vice President for NewStar Financial’s Commercial Real Estate Group where she was responsible for underwriting and executing over $400 million in acquisition loans, property refinancings, and project and portfolio recapitalizations in a variety of asset classes. Prior to joining NewStar Ms. Pianin worked at AIG Global Real Estate where she had roles that included asset management, mortgage finance, and special projects. Responsibilities included structuring and managing joint ventures, equity investments, senior financings, debt restructurings, acquisitions and sales of real property and loan portfolios and asset management of other retail and office portfolios. Ms. Pianin also has experience in leasing, construction and development.
Carolyn has an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Economics from Wellesley College, an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and a MS in Real Estate from New York University. She is a CERTIFIED COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT MEMBER® , a CERTIFIED PROPERTY MANAGER® and a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson in the State of New York (pending).
Anthony B. Sanders
Distinguished Professor of Real Estate Finance
Professor of Finance
George Mason University
Anthony B. Sanders is Professor of Finance in the School of Management at George Mason University where he is the Distinguished Professor of Real Estate Finance. He has previously taught at University of Chicago (Graduate School of Business), University of Texas at Austin (McCombs School of Business) and The Ohio State University (Fisher College of Business). In addition, he served as Director and Head of Asset-backed and Mortgage-backed Securities Research at Deutsche Bank in New York City.
His research and teaching focuses on financial institutions and capital markets with particular emphasis on real estate finance and investment. He has published articles in Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Business, Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Housing Economics and other journals. Professor Sanders has received 6 teaching awards and 3 research awards. He serves as Associate Editor for several leading journals. Recently, he has given presentations to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Exane BNP Paribas in Paris and Geneva and the Bank of Japan on the subject of the housing bubble and commercial real estate in the U.S. and the mortgage market. He has given other presentations in Chile, Japan, China, Poland, England and Mexico in recent years. Professor Sanders has testified in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on the U.S. real estate asset and debt markets. Also, he was an invited speaker to the FTC on the subject of predatory lending.
Jeffrey A. ScottManaging Director
Eastdil Secured
Jeff Scott is a Managing Director of Eastdil Secured located in the firm’s Washington, DC office. Mr. Scott is focused on executing private equity and structured transactions for both public and private real estate companies nationally and executing on a variety of capital markets transactions in the Washington, DC market . Prior to joining Eastdil Secured in early 2009, Mr. Scott was Head of Private Equity in Wachovia Securities’ Real Estate Investment Banking Group. Transactions led by Mr. Scott while at Wachovia include the $6.6 billion acquisition of Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town in New York City, the $1.1 billion acquisition of the Westfield office portfolio in Arlington, VA, joint ventures on behalf of BRE Properties, UDR, AIMCO, Colonial, Lexington Corporate Properties Trust and Federal Realty Trust and M&A transactions for CenterPoint, Heritage Realty Trust, Arden Realty Trust, CRT Property Trust, Columbia Property Trust and Government Property Trust. Over his career, Mr. Scott has completed in excess of $46 billion of transactions.
Prior to joining Wachovia, Mr. Scott was a managing partner with Andersen Real Estate Capital Markets, where he was responsible for originating and executing strategic capital markets consulting, portfolio and company sales and private placements of debt and equity. In addition, Mr. Scott served as a co-founder and president of Zethus, Inc., a Goldman Sachs-backed real estate e-commerce venture.
Prior to joining Andersen, Mr. Scott was a managing director for Jones Lang Wootton USA, where he was ultimately responsible for the activity of the Washington, DC office. Mr. Scott’s focus was on executing joint ventures, refinancings, recapitalizations and property sales.
Mr. Scott is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
Michael YavinskySenior Vice President
Walker & Dunlop
Bethesda, Maryland
Michael Yavinsky, senior vice president, joined Walker & Dunlop in 1997. Since then, Mr. Yavinsky has successfully closed over $1.5 billion in financing across the Mid-Atlantic. Financing structures include both first trust and mezzanine loans secured by single assets or multiple asset credit facilities. Prior to working for Walker & Dunlop, Mr. Yavinsky worked as a commercial real estate appraiser for a Washington, DC-based appraisal firm and as a credit analyst for a Virginia-based bank. Mr. Yavinsky graduated from the University of Delaware in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. He is a member of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Metropolitan Washington, the District of Columbia Building Industry Association, and the International Council of Shopping Centers.