Clifford Welden.
Clifford Welden, 29
Director of Capital Markets Strategies at Newmark
At the height of the pandemic, Clifford Welden, a director in Newmark’s capital markets strategies group, was hard at work as part of one of the highest-producing multifamily debt teams at the firm.
In April 2020 the six-person team closed the $102 million financing of the acquisition of Cityfront Place, a Class A, 39-story, 480-unit Chicago high-rise located along the Chicago River with scenic views of Lake Michigan. A joint venture between Lakewood, N.J.-based Strategic Properties of North America and Mirae Asset Daewoo of South Korea acquired the site.
“It was one of the first major transactions of that scale where there was Korean capital specifically coming to a multifamily opportunity in the U.S.,” Welden said. “That was a fun one and the clients were very happy.”
What made the deal exciting for him was working with foreign capital, a tristate-based investor, and a lot of moving parts, all amid a market in flux.
Welden has worked on Anthony Orso’s team for nine years, starting with an internship at Cantor Fitzgerald as a sophomore at Boston College Carroll School of Management. Orso’s team made the move to Newmark in 2018.
It’s that institutional knowledge, along with starting his career as a lender, that makes Welden effective at his job.
His resume has resulted in him being tapped to work on the team’s more intricate transactions.
Just before the pandemic Welden closed the biggest deal of his career — a bespoke, multi-tranche, $1 billion financing sourced from a combination of Freddie Mac and a national bank. Welden’s team both sourced the buyer and structured the financing.
“It’s not every day that a 28-year-old kid is working on a $1 billion financing,” Welden said of himself at the time. “That was a fantastic exposure for me.”—L.E.S.
