American Realty Capital Bolsters Investment Banking and Capital Markets Team and Reports Record Year for Advisory Transactions

NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- American Realty Capital ("ARC") today announced a record year in 2012 for advisory transactions as well as several senior-level additions to its investment banking and capital markets team.

Capital markets highlights include:

American Realty Capital currently advises $13.5 billion of registered public programs in offering.  The company has arranged $1.8 billion of debt capital markets transactions and advised on $11.3 billion of mergers and capital markets activities.

New hires include:

The new hires join a team of approximately 300 professionals and staff members at ARC and its FINRA member broker dealer subsidiary, Realty Capital Securities. Both firms experienced significant growth in 2012, attracting senior talent from top legal, investment banking, sales and capital markets disciplines.

"The expansion of our investment banking and capital markets team mirrors the growth in our other key client service areas," noted Nicholas S. Schorsch, Chairman of ARC.  "Just as we have expanded our legal, acquisitions, asset management, accounting, property management and leasing capabilities, the hiring of key investment banking and capital markets professionals enables us to serve an ever-growing investor base with world-class insights and execution capabilities."

Soon to join the ARC companies are Jonathan Mehlman, Executive Vice President and Managing Director – Advisory and Capital Markets, Imran Ahmed, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, and, joining ARC in November 2012, Firman Leung, Executive Vice President and Managing Director. 

Mr. Mehlman comes to ARC from KPMG Corporate Finance, where he was Co-Head of the Real Estate, Lodging and Gaming practice.  Previously, he held similar positions with HSBC, Citigroup Global Markets and Deutsche Bank Securities.

Mr. Ahmed also joins ARC from KPMG Corporate Finance, where he was Co-Head of the Real Estate, Lodging and Gaming practice.  Prior to KPMG, Mr. Ahmed was a Founding Partner and Chief Operating Officer of Ranieri Real Estate Partners LP.  He was previously a Managing Director in Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging Investment Banking and Finance groups at Deutsche Bank Securities.

Mr. Leung joined ARC from Sandler O'Neill where he was a Managing Director responsible for the structuring, marketing and pricing for all equity and debt raising initiatives in both the public and private markets.  Prior to Sandler, Mr. Leung served as the International Equity Syndicate manager for Salomon Smith Barney and was responsible for raising equity capital for all non-U.S. issuers in over 30 countries. 

"We are very pleased to welcome these senior professionals to our outstanding banking team," noted Mr. Schorsch.  "The growth in transaction volume we have enjoyed this year has enabled us to add top talent to our investment-banking department, which will allow us to continue to fortify our position as advisor of choice for real estate and other alternative investment classes, as well as to broaden the scope of services we provide."

The ARC investment-banking group was formed in 2010 to provide comprehensive strategic, investment banking and capital markets advice to real estate and other alternative investment enterprises.  The department also includes Senior Vice Presidents Andrew Winer, Head of Debt Capital Markets, and Michael Reiter, Senior Vice President in Investment Banking. 

Mr. Winer joined ARC in 2011 from Credit Suisse where he enjoyed a 17-year career, most recently overseeing the pricing, hedging and execution of commercial securitized real estate debt.  

Mr. Reiter joined ARC in early 2007.  Prior to that, Michael was a Director with BTR Capital Group, a private equity real estate fund sponsored by Studley.  Mr. Reiter was previously in the real estate group at Ernst & Young, where he focused on REIT and real estate private equity and M&A transaction underwriting, due diligence and valuation services.

A seasoned research team augments the firm's investment-banking capability.  Chris Pike is currently the director of investment research at American Realty Capital. His responsibilities include equity and property research on the non-listed REITs and publicly listed REITs.  He joined ARC in August 2011.  Previously Mr. Pike was an equity research analyst at Merrill Lynch, UBS, and Wachovia.  Additionally, he was a member of the real estate investment banking team at Goldman Sachs, focused on the origination and distribution of CMBS securities.

Chris works closely with Alan Calderon, Co-Head of the Due Diligence whose responsibilities include performing due diligence on the firm's registered offerings. Prior to assuming his current role in June 2011, Mr. Calderon was the Director of Investment Research at American Realty Capital where his responsibilities included writing in-depth research reports and performing financial analysis on all of the non-traded REIT offerings currently effective. In addition, he performed financial analysis on the closed non-traded REIT programs. Prior to joining American Realty Capital, Mr. Calderon conducted equity research on the publicly traded REITs since 2000, including three years on the #2 ranked Institutional Investor Morgan Stanley sell-side equity research team, specializing in the retail REITs.

The investment-banking department also recently added Ryan Tooley, as an Assistant General Counsel. Prior to joining ARC in May 2012, Mr. Tooley was an associate in the Corporate & Securities practice at Dechert LLP in New York, where he represented public and private companies, financial institutions, private equity funds, and hedge funds in financings, mergers and acquisitions, compliance, and a full range of general corporate matters.  He previously worked at Ropes & Gray LLP in Boston and New York. 

Also working closely with the investment-banking team will be Nick Radesca, who recently joined American Realty Capital as Senior Vice President & Chief Accounting Officer.  Nick came from Solar Senior Capital Ltd. most recently where he served as the chief financial officer of publicly traded business development companies.  Mr. Radesca was also the chief accounting officer at iStar Financial Inc., a publicly traded, diversified commercial real estate investment trust, where his responsibilities encompassed all aspects of accounting, tax, and SEC reporting.  Mr. Radesca has previously held senior accounting and financial reporting roles at Fannie Mae, Del Monte Foods Company, Providian Financial and Bank of America. 

"As a leading sponsor and wholesaler of institutional quality alternative investment programs, our best practices dictate we understand the capital markets environment so as to maximize shareholder value," noted Michael Weil, Chief Executive Officer of RCS.  "Assembling top investment banking talent not only gives us a direct and informed point of view on the most attractive strategic alternatives, but also provides us the ability to design investment products with a view toward optimal exit strategies."

About American Realty Capital
American Realty Capital is a full-service real estate advisory firm founded in 2006 that sponsors real estate investment programs and provides advisory services to retail and institutional investors. ARC is an active sponsor and manager of public and private real estate investments, a business development company and other investment solutions. Collectively, ARC's senior team of seasoned professionals has acquired and managed over $10 billion of real estate, as well as $5 billion of corporate sale-leasebacks as of 2012.

About Realty Capital Securities
Realty Capital Securities, LLC was founded by Nicholas S. Schorsch, William M. Kahane and Michael Weil in February 2008.  RCS is led by Michael Weil, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Louisa Quarto, President, John Grady, Chief Operating and Compliance Officer, Alex MacGillvray, Executive Vice President and National Sales Manager, and Richard Arnitz, Executive Director. RCS is the managing broker-dealer for various non-traded REITs and business development corporations sponsored and managed by American Realty Capital, as well as non-traded REITS managed by other sponsors.

SOURCE American Realty Capital