SoCal Industry Roundup: Sabal Capital Adds 14 Hires to Lending Team
By Greg Cornfield February 22, 2021 5:55 pm
reprints![Clockwise from top left: Depelsha McGruder, Owen Bouton, Michael Cozza, and Christopher West.](https://commercialobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/02/f.SoCal_.2.22.png?w=755)
The rate of hirings and promotions in the commercial real estate industry has been on the rise, and seems to be headed back to “pre-COVID” levels.
Investment management firm Oaktree (OAK-A) Capital Group appointed Depelsha McGruder to its board of directors. McGruder is the COO and treasurer of the Ford Foundation, and she previously served as COO of New York Public Radio, and spent 17 years at Viacom.
Alternative lender and investor Sabal Capital Partners announced 14 new hires, including Owen Bouton and Michael Cozza — both from CIBC — to be managing directors of the company’s CMBS group.
Bouton has more than 15 years of experience, and he was previously an executive director of loan production at CIBC, vice president of loan production at Hunt Mortgage Group and vice president of loan production at LStar Capital. Cozza has more than 25 years of experience after serving as senior loan originator at CIBC. Cozza was also previously a loan officer at Northfield Bank as well as senior loan originator at JPMorgan Capital.
On the agency lending side, Christopher West will be production manager of term lending sales. He previously served as mortgage originator at Greystone Servicing Co., and held various roles at Basis Investment Group, Walker & Dunlop and CBRE.
Additional hires for Sabal’s loan programs include: Darius Rybinswki, Lisa Dunn, and Luan “Jay” Tang. Additional hires for Sabal’ agency programs include: Collin Rodgers, Varduhi Hunanyan, Judy Huynh-Smith, Scott Regan, Gamil Saad, Kerri Spalding-Thompson, Brendan Whaley, and James Nguyen.
Meanwhile, JLL (JLL) has moved into its new 35,000-square-foot office at Intersect in Irvine. Intersect is a four-building, 430,000-square-foot Class-A office campus located on five acres, and it is owned and operated by a joint venture between Hines and PIMCO.