Howard Schwimmer (left) and Michael Frankel.
Howard Schwimmer and Michael Frankel
Co-CEOs at Rexford Industrial Realty
President Trump’s trade policies have scrambled the industrial property leasing market, forcing logistics businesses like Rexford Industrial Realty to become more nimble.
Co-CEOs Howard Schwimmer and Michael Frankel helped build up the Los Angeles-based company into one of the state’s leading real estate investment trusts, spending more than $1 billion a year to acquire and reposition warehouse space in Southern California since the pandemic.
Rexford managed to navigate difficult headwinds last year as the market experienced a downturn due to increased vacancies and a slowdown in new industrial construction.
The REIT secured three long-term leases in August with Voyant Beauty, a Chicago-based cosmetics manufacturer, for 180,000 square feet of warehouse space. In October, Rexford purchased a 279,000-square-foot property in the Inland Empire for $70 million.
At the end of the year, Rexford acquired a 300,000-square-foot fully leased warehouse in L.A.’s Compton neighborhood from J.P. Morgan for $137 million. By then, the REIT’s portfolio was 96 percent occupied and 96 percent leased.
Frankel said during an April earnings call that Rexford was well positioned to withstand any trade volatility from Washington after it posted $252 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2025 and recorded its highest level of leasing volume (2.4 million square feet) in the last 12 months.
The real estate investment trust’s second-quarter earnings also looked promising, rising to $113 million compared with $80 million during the same quarter in 2024, and the company recorded a healthy 1.7 million square feet of new and renewal leases for the quarter, according to a July earnings report.
But the Trump administration’s tariffs, which imposed a 10 percent tax on all imports and put additional reciprocal duties on several countries, forced Rexford to make changes and its tenants to re-evaluate their plans. By August, fund manager Elliott Investment Management took a large stake in Rexford, which could drive additional changes.
