Legan Bayombo, 30
Senior analyst in equity fund management at Silverstein Properties
Legan Bayombo got his start in construction management after college and quickly learned about the number of stakeholders involved in real estate projects. The experience gave him a pretty unbeatable foundation (no pun intended) in learning the real estate ropes — and the fact that developers held the power when it came to decision-making wasn’t lost on him.
After attending Columbia, Bayombo joined Silverstein Properties in 2022. Today, he helps manage the acquisition, financing, construction and asset management of a $2.4 billion real estate portfolio consisting of nine multifamily assets and one life sciences building in opportunity zones nationwide. He also recommends capital allocation strategies for two REITs and four single-asset fund investment vehicles.
Bayombo joined Silverstein at an especially interesting time, just as interest rates were starting to rise. Navigating the impact of that incline on asset values, asset management needs and simply making pipeline deals pencil was a big focus for his team from the offset.
“It was definitely a challenge, but what we’ve been focusing on as a firm is assets that are in markets where we have an expectation of growth, and trying to find a differentiated product in order to get the alpha that we would hope to achieve,” Bayombo said.
And, Bayombo’s closings show there have been plenty of deals to talk about these past few years. He worked on the $215 million project capitalization of 3.0 University Place, a 250,000-square-foot life science building in Philadelphia, as well as the $436 million capitalization of South Pier at Tempe Town Lake, a 722-unit multifamily project in Tempe, Ariz. The latter included $223 million in construction financing and $213 million of equity from Silverstein’s fund.
As for the advice he’d bestow upon anyone considering a similar career path: “Early in your career, I think it’s very important to put your head down and learn as much as you can. Just soak up as much knowledge as possible from your various team members. I’ve been fortunate through being in the seat of an LP in being exposed to so many different asset classes and how capital market trends are influencing different deals in different sectors across the country, and having as much breadth of experience as possible is very important.”
