Industry Veteran Ben Johnson Joins Institutional Real Estate, Inc.

SAN RAMON, Calif., July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Effective today, Ben Johnson has joined Institutional Real Estate, Inc. as managing director and editor-in-chief of the company's newest monthly publication, Real Assets Adviser. Mr. Johnson will be based in the company's San Ramon, California, headquarters and will report to Geoffrey Dohrmann, founder, president and CEO of the firm, and Larry Gray, Editorial Director for all Institutional Real Estate, Inc. publications and web-based news and information resources.

"Ben is a seasoned communications, marketing, sales and business development professional with more than 25 years of experience in the communications business, most of it focused on serving various facets of the real estate investment industry," Dohrmann says. "His addition to our senior management team brings considerable journalistic expertise and experience in publication design, marketing and sales, as well as extensive contacts and relationships throughout the industry to our company. This will prove invaluable as we launch a ground-breaking new Real Assets publication dedicated to the rapidly growing defined contribution pension plan and wealth advisory markets."

Launching in October 2014, Real Assets Adviser will be the only independent publication devoted to educating registered investment advisors (RIAs), wealth managers, family offices and defined contribution pension plan administrators about the Real Assets class. "This is an incredible opportunity to leverage the phenomenal platform that Mr. Dohrmann has so successfully created in the institutional advisory space," Johnson says. "In both print and digital form, and with an initial audience of nearly 70,000, we will provide actionable information on the entire spectrum of Real Assets, including real estate, farmland, timberland, infrastructure, energy and commodities."

Most recently, Mr. Johnson was the Marketing Director for Marcus & Millichap, a national real estate investment services firm. Prior to joining Marcus & Millichap, he was Vice President of Marketing with non-traded REIT sponsor Cole Real Estate Investments in Phoenix, a company that recently was acquired by New York City–based American Realty Capital (ARC).

His prior experience also includes serving as a Director at American Airlines Publishing, and as Editor, Associate Publisher and Publisher of numerous Penton Media properties, including National Real Estate Investor, Shopping Center World/Retail Traffic, Arts & Crafts Retailer, and CES Trade News Daily magazines.

He also has run his own media consulting business, Johnson Media Ventures, LLC, and has served in a variety of marketing, publishing and editorial positions, including Publisher of CPA Practice Advisor (a Cygnus Business Media property), Publishing Director at CoStar Group, and Real Estate Marketing Director at Wells Real Estate Funds, as well as Assistant Marketing Director at Mystic Pointe for Ben Franklin Properties.

In addition, Mr. Johnson is the author of the only biography on Sam Zell, the Chicago-based real estate and media investor (Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks, Inside the Contrarian Mind of Billionaire Mogul Sam Zell), originally published by Penguin Group USA in December 2009.

A graduate of the University of Missouri – Columbia and Missouri Southern State University, Mr. Johnson is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the International Council of Shopping Centers, the Business Marketing Association, and the National Association of Real Estate Editors, and he serves on the Board of Governors of Allied Commercial Real Estate Services.

About Institutional Real Estate, Inc.

Founded in 1987, Institutional Real Estate, Inc. is the publisher of several award winning industry trade publications, including The Institutional Real Estate Letter – Americas, The Institutional Real Estate Letter – Europe, The Institutional Real Estate Letter –Asia Pacific and Institutional Investing in Infrastructure.

Institutional Real Estate, Inc's newest publication, Real Asset Adviser, is a monthly electronic and print magazine serving the interests of the defined contribution pension fund market and the private wealth advisory market. The publication provides information and perspectives to support allocating and investing in the Real Asset classes, including real estate, agriculture, timber, infrastructure, oil and gas, and commodities. The business model for the publication relies on a combination of controlled and paid subscription revenues, advertising revenues, sponsorship revenues and conference-related revenues.

In addition to its publishing operations, IREI provides free online access to and alerts on breaking real estate and infrastructure investment industry–related news and information, aggregated from hundreds of leading newswires and business publications. It also offers a subscription-based premium newswire service (the Institutional Real Estate Newsline, or IREN) that delivers to its subscribers proprietary breaking news on institutional real estate and infrastructure investment industry–related organizations, investment offerings and deals.

Institutional Real Estate, Inc. also is the creator and manager of the FundTracker database, a subscription-based information service designed for institutional investors and the people and companies who serve them. The database tracks institutional real estate investors, investment managers, fund and separate account offerings, real estate investment consultants, placement agents, and real estate investment manager search activity, as well as property acquisitions and sales conducted by the investment managers and investors covered by the database. The system also provides a user-driven alert system that enables users to customize the types of information to which they wish to be alerted, and the frequency with which those alerts are delivered. Links embedded in the instant, daily or weekly email updates take the user directly to the record that has been updated in the database.

To complement its publishing, newswire and database offerings, Institutional Real Estate, Inc. also sponsors several public conference offerings, including the Visions, Insights & Perspectives (VIP) series, which has been offered in Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific region. In addition, the company sponsors the Institutional Investing In Infrastructure conferences.

The company currently has offices in San Ramon, London, New York City and Singapore.

For additional information on the company and its businesses, visit http://www.irei.com

SOURCE Institutional Real Estate, Inc.