Michael Turner, Allison Wolfe, Dean Shapiro
Michael Turner, Allison Wolfe and Dean Shapiro
President; CFO and Global Head of Portfolio Management; Head of U.S. Development at Oxford Properties Group
Last year's rank: 8
When the world turned on a dime in early 2020, Oxford Properties Group found its mammoth construction financing for Manhattan’s St. John’s Terminal suddenly in limbo.
“Closing a close to $1 billion construction loan is never an easy feat,” Allison Wolfe said. “Getting the loan closed was really important and, almost even more impressive, we were actually able to top out St. John’s Terminal two weeks ahead of schedule.”
Indeed, the firm not only managed to land $973 million in financing led by Wells Fargo — one of the largest loans of the crisis — but is making steady progress toward welcoming tenant Google next year.
The firm, which is headquartered in Toronto and has offices in New York, went back to the drawing board at the onset of the pandemic, as it sought to make sense of the multitude of investment options. It ended up zeroing in on two areas: private investment in public equity (PIPE) and credit opportunities.
“Transitioning loans, value-add loans, construction completion loans — all the scary things that banks didn’t want to do and the U.S. mortgage [real estate investment trust] market wasn’t able to do at that time — we looked at a lot of flow,” Michael Turner said.
Additionally, the firm continued to move into high-growth areas that helped diversify its portfolio.
The firm also allocated more than $1.5 billion of equity to the logistics sector, including a $360 million investment in September in Lineage Logistics (“the category killer in the cold storage space,” Turner said) and continued to invest in its IDI Logistics division.
Oxford made multiple acquisitions in the life sciences and multifamily sectors as well, ranging from its $173 million purchase last month of Foundry31 in Berkeley, Calif., which will be converted to lab space, to the February purchase of its first apartment complex in Phoenix, Ariz.
Going forward, the firm plans to deploy about $500 million in the logistics space this year, will be “laser-focused” on growing the life sciences business, and will execute deals on the credit and equity side from coast to coast, Wolfe said. With the credit business, the firm expects to rotate capital into underserved sectors like hospitality as the lending field becomes more crowded.
The firm is also studying the film production studio space, from both a credit and an equity perspective, in markets including L.A., Atlanta, New York, Vancouver, Toronto and London.
The firm, which draws its U.S. development roots to Hudson Yards, isn’t betting against New York, either.
“We’ve hit the bottom in New York; the worst is behind us,” Turner said. “People are coming back to work, the capital is coming back, and the city is going to make its way back and find its feet.”—S.G.
