Robert Morse, Jonathan Slager, Dean Allara and Adam O’Farrell
Executive chairman; CEO; vice chairman; chief operating officer at Bridge Investment Group
Last year's rank: 75
Bridge Investment Group, led by a team that includes Robert Morse, Jonathan Slager, Dean Allara and Adam O’Farrell, has proven to be nimble and entrepreneurial, never overstating the importance of vertical integration.
“Overall, in 2022 we invested significantly in our organization. We internalized fund management after two years of prep to provide a state-of-the-art experience for our investors,” said Robert Morse. “We also solidified our presence in Europe and Asia to expand our capital-
raising capabilities.”
In October, the Salt Lake City-based company completed the capital raise on the largest-ever workforce housing fund in the U.S., garnering $1.74 billion in capital commitments. And in January, it completed the largest dedicated multifamily fund ever, closing $2.26 billion in equity commitments.
“Industrial value-add continues to find amazing off-market deal flow in infill locations, and our Bridge Debt Strategies team was able to take advantage of the dislocation in the CRE-backed bond market and invest in very attractively priced bonds and some good note sales,” said Jonathan Slager. “On an M&A basis, post-year in Q1 2023, we acquired Newbury, a [private equity] secondaries business that specializes in LP stakes in order to diversify and scale.”
Although transaction volumes are way down in all markets, company leaders say Bridge continues to succeed by driving alpha at the asset level with its hands on vertical integration.
“Our very strong reputation with other owners, lenders and brokers put us in a very strong position to acquire attractively priced assets as a very tight debt market and high rates take fundamentally good assets and force some distress for less well-capitalized sponsors,” Slager said. “We are also finding attractive dislocation opportunities in our debt business and we are diversifying into secondaries, which is a bit counter-cyclical to our RE business. And we are developing solar through our renewable energy business, so finding other ways to continue to succeed and grow while the debt capital markets resolve their issues and reopen.”
To that end, Bridge launched a proptech strategy called Bridge Ventures last year, and made its first move into infrastructure with its partnership with Lumen Energy in Bridge Renewable Energy strategy. It anticipates making huge strides in putting solar onto CRE projects in the future.
