Shaul Kuba, Avi Shemesh and Richard Ressler

CIM Group’s principals and founders are the Southern California kings of high-low. 

Shaul Kuba and Avi Shemesh, friends for 40 years, got their start in the region flipping houses and landscaping yards. They pitched their third partner, Richard Ressler, as a landscaping client — and instead a mighty real estate and investment firm was born. It didn’t hurt that J.D./M.B.A. Ressler had deep Wall Street connections: Not only had he worked at now-defunct investment banking giant Drexel Burnham Lambert, but his brother co-founded private equity firm Apollo Global Management (where brother-in-law Leon Black was CEO).

The broad spectrum of experience has created a broad firm that buys, develops, operates, lends on, and sells real estate. The firm has $29.9 billion in assets under management, and has made a recent push to work with registered investment advisers as well as its more historic clients such as pension funds. 

In L.A., Kuba, the lead developer of the three, has been leading a massive push into the West Adams district, most recently debuting the Read, a six-story pet-friendly apartment building. CIM has recapped the Lot at Formosa, a historic soundstage where Miramax is a top tenant, for $229.8 million, replacing a loan from AllianceBernstein with a loan from Blue Sky Servicing.  (CIM paid just $15 million for the property in 2007, but has since modernized the lot and added three office buildings.)

And, speaking of office, the firm’s big win last year was at the 52-story tower City National 2CAL, which landed Southern California Gas as a tenant on eight floors in a lease totaling 198,553 square feet. That deal was Downtown L.A.’s largest new tenant lease, and terms of the deal include “building top signage” — so expect a renaming of the skyscraper to SoCalGas 2CAL.