Criterion Real Estate Capital Hires Adam Matos and Ben Milde for Senior Roles

Criterion Real Estate Capital is loading up on new senior leadership. 

The New York-based real estate investment firm announced Monday that it has hired Adam Matos as managing director and Ben Milde as chief operating officer. 

Matos has spent the previous seven years as senior vice president at Safehold (SAFE), a publicly traded real estate investment trust that specializes in ground leases, while Milde comes over as the former managing partner of Richbell Equities, a multifamily investment firm. 

Both executives will report directly to Chuck Rosenzweig, Criterion Real Estate Capital’s founder and managing partner. 

Rosenzweig praised both Matos and Milde for their decades of experience in CRE structured finance. 

“Adam is a really smart guy who has been at one place, Safehold, where he started in 2008, and he did everything from restructurings to originating high-yield debt and executing the Safehold business plan of ground leases, so he has the skills that speak to what we do,” said Rosenzwieg. “He really fit the bill for a senior person at the stage of his career to help us get to another level.” 

“And I knew Ben from when he worked on Wall Street,” he continued. “He was a senior guy at Bear Stearns and Citibank, running origination at both those places, and he got a good amount of development experience in doing multifamily deals. 

“Ben is at the stage of his career where he’s a five-tool athlete,” added Rosenzweig. 

Rosenzweig told CO that both Matos and Milde will fit in with Criterion’s business model, which prioritizes originating high-yield debt, participating loans, and deploying preferred and senior equity into assets in U.S. gateway markets.

“We’re special situations investors: We invest both debt and equity into high-quality real estate, backing business plans that help people accomplish opportunistic [goals], which typically involve development, redevelopment, and repositioning,” he said. “And in markets where there’s distress and recap opportunities, we take advantage of that.”

Rosenzweig added that bringing Matos and Milde on board will augment the firm’s “evergreen strategy” that allows it to invest through different market cycles. 

“When interest rates are low, we gear more toward credit … and when things get more opportunistic, we are more toward equity,” he said. “We invest across the capital structure.

“No two deals of ours have looked the same, in terms of structure,” he added. 

Brian Pascus can be reached at bpascus@commercialobserver.com