Michael Lavipour (left) and Eric Cohen.
Michael Lavipour and Eric Cohen
Senior managing director and head of lending; managing director and head of debt origination at Affinius Capital
For a firm known to play up and down the capital stack, Affinius Capital was all over the Los Angeles area in 2024 and early 2025.
The firm completed 20 deals in Southern California in the past year totaling approximately $1 billion in investment activity.
Eric Cohen said his firm’s lending activity in Southern California “is a good representation of our overall credit business” as the deals span the gamut of preferred equity, construction lending, bridge financings and fixed-rate stabilized loans, with a majority of the deals concentrated in multifamily and Industrial (with even a little self-storage).
Even the devastating wildfires this year didn’t scare off the firm from going in and staying aggressive with its capital.
“We’re believers in the market. We didn’t pull back in any way associated with fires,” said Michael Lavipour. “Some of that real estate will take a long time to re-create itself, but it’s in the most prime areas of Los Angeles.”
Notable deals included lending $135 million in construction financing to DECA and Wildcat to build Perris Gateway, an 850,000-square-foot industrial facility in the Inland Empire; providing $148.5 million in bridge debt to Diamond Realty Investments to refinance existing construction debt and stabilize 800 Broadway, a 389-unit, Class A multifamily building that recently opened in San Diego; and originating a $92 million construction loan so Helio Group could build Aston Residences, a 190-unit multifamily complex in Culver City near the famous MGM Studios lot.
In June, the firm worked with Bank OZK to finance the construction of Hillcrest Apartments, a 333-unit multifamily property in Thousand Oaks, a small town just outside Malibu. Affinius invested $55 million of preferred equity in that development.
“We’re long-term bullish on L.A. and Southern California,” said Lavipour. “Housing is undersupplied there, for sure, so new product is really where the focus is. Most of what we’ve done in the marketplace is housing-oriented as opposed to other asset classes.”
