Edwards to Lead CBRE Integrated Retail Accounts Practice
Edwards to Lead CBRE Integrated Retail Accounts Practice
CBRE, Los Angeles, announced today that Branson Edwards joined the company as Executive Vice President and Leader of Integrated Retail Accounts in the Americas.
Edwards joins CBRE from Newmark Knight Frank, where he built and managed the firm’s national Retail Occupier Services business.
Prior to Newmark Knight Frank, Edwards led the same practice at JLL after JLL’s purchase of his boutique retail advisory firm, The Standard Group, which he formed in 1999. Earlier in his career, Branson was part of the retail real estate teams that managed the significant rollouts of Hollywood Video, Boston Market and Blinds to Go.
Akerman Grows National Real Estate Practice
Law firm Akerman LLP expanded its Real Estate Practice Group by adding five lawyers in New York from Duval Stachenfeld LLP. Alan Cohen, Randy Eckers, Michael Estreicher and Samuel Lee join Akerman as partners.
Cohen will serve as chair of the firm’s Real Estate Finance Practice.
Special Counsel Alexander (A.J.) Sokoloff also joined the new team. The group has represented major financial institutions, mortgage REITs and investment funds.
Alan Cohen
With more than 30 years of experience, Cohen has handled virtually every type of commercial real estate transaction during his career. He is a real estate strategist, providing clients with a comprehensive view of the entire real estate landscape from structured finance to ground-up developments, complex joint ventures, and workouts and restructurings. He helps clients negotiate advantageous transactions, often involving multiple parties and multiple layers of the capital stack. More recently, he focuses his practice on real estate finance, real estate development, real estate ventures and real estate transactions within the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean.
Randy Eckers
Eckers has 20 years of experience as a real estate finance attorney. He represents large lending institutions, private equity funds, developers, bond investors and property owners in commercial real estate financing, structured financing and secondary market transactions.
Michael Estreicher
Estreicher has more than 15 years of experience representing banks, financial institutions, investment funds and other institutional investors, owners and developers in a variety of commercial real estate and financing transactions. He regularly represents borrowers and lenders in all types of loan transactions, including CMBS, portfolio, mezzanine and construction loans. His work in this area is primarily focused on retail, residential (including condominiums), hotels, storage facilities, commercial and mixed-use assets.
Samuel Lee
Lee has more than 15 years of experience representing financial institutions, banks, life insurance companies, investment funds and other institutional investors in a variety of commercial real estate finance transactions. He focuses his practice on representing these institutions in a variety of portfolio and secondary market transactions including syndicated loans, securitized loans and other types of capital markets financings. He also regularly advises these institutions in the acquisition, disposition and restructuring of their interests in these financing structures.
A.J. Sokoloff
Sokoloff represents banks, REITs, debt and private equity funds and developers in complex real estate transactions, including mortgage, mezzanine, syndicated loan financings and property acquisitions. In the last year, he completed a secondment for a multinational investment bank and financial services company, where he served as in-house counsel and loan closer.
