REPE Fund Profile Series - Part Ten: Angelo Gordon

Welcome to the milestone that is Part Ten of our Fund Profile Series! We’re one fifth of the way through the top 50 global real estate private equity (REPE) firms on the 2020 PERE 100 list.

Each Fund Profile briefly summarizes each fund’s history, as well as getting into the details of the funds themselves. And to help you prepare for your real estate private equity interview(s), we also outline a few of each firm’s notable real estate equity investments in recent years. 

Following on from our focus on BentallGreenOak in Part Nine of the series, this tenth chapter will examine Angelo, Gordon & Co. in more detail.

Key facts about Angelo Gordon

Angelo, Gordon & Co. (aka Angelo Gordon) was founded in 1988 by two former L. F. Rothschild & Company colleagues, John M. Angelo and Michael L. Gordon, after their former employer’s collapse following the ‘Black Monday’ stock market crash of 1987—both were senior figures of the firm’s arbitrage department before jumping ship.

From the firm’s inception, John held the CEO position until his untimely death of cancer, aged 74, in 2016. His co-founder, Michael, then took up the mantle until the end of 2020, eventually passing the baton to both Adam Schwartz and Josh Baumgarten—the firm’s co-CIOs at the time. Michael now serves as the non-executive Chair of the firm’s Partnership Advisory Board.

True to its original roots on Wall Street, the firm’s HQ remains in New York City. The firm boasts a team size of over 550 employees, split across 4 continents. Other than NYC, the firm has 14 offices in prominent U.S. hubs such as San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., as well as further afield in cities such as London, Frankfurt, Seoul, and Singapore. 

What does Angelo Gordon’s real estate equity investment strategy look like?

Angelo Gordon structures its business between two distinct investment disciplines: credit y solutions and real estate investing, with around $48B worth of assets under management between the two business lines. As co-CEOs, Josh Baumgarten leads the firm’s credit business, while Adam Schwartz leads the firm’s global real estate investment group activities. 

Within Angelo Gordon’s credit business, the firm’s main areas of investment focus include distressed debt, commercial mortgages, and residential mortgages and consumer debt in the North American and European markets, as well as direct lending solutions for U.S. businesses through its Twin Brook Capital Partners subsidiary.

On the real estate investment side, the firm employs established investment approaches, such as core, value-add, and opportunistic strategies, to invest across all major asset classes in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. 

Angelo Gordon’s global real estate investment portfolio includes debt and lending assets (through its Net Lease product), retail developments, industrial and logistics assets, office properties, residential units, and hospitality and leisure properties.

Some of Angelo Gordon’s notable REPE deals

We always recommend that you take the time to examine a real estate private equity firm’s deals, looking at both challenges and successes, to get a better understanding of how the teams invest and the rationale behind the choices.

We’ve listed some of Angelo Gordon’s notable deals below to get you started:

St. Ermin's Hotel (London, England) 

In 2010, Angelo Gordon joined forces with Amerimar Enterprises (an American hospitality developer) and GraceMark Investments (a British real estate asset management company) for an opportunistic hotel investment.

Together, the group spent GBP £65M (around $88M) to purchase the Jolly St. Ermin’s Hotel from NH Hoteles—a 10,100 square foot, 2-star hotel with  275 rooms in the heart of central London, close to various tourist attractions and business facilities.

After investing in refurbishments to upgrade the hotel to a deluxe 4-star facility, the group sold the new 331-room St. Ermin’s Hotel to Sunrider International, a Taiwanese firm, for GBP £185M (around $251M) in 2015.

338 Queen’s Road Central (Sheung Wan, Hong Kong) 

In 2016, a joint venture between Angelo Gordon and Hanison Construction, a publicly listed Hong Kong-based investment company, invested in a 25-story commercial building with just under 61,000 square feet of residential space used as serviced apartments. 

Originally acquired for HK$630M (approx. $80.8M), the joint venture eventually sold the building to Asia Cassava Resources and Hugo Lam for HK$1.1B (around $140M) in 2018.

South Plaza (Bristol, England)

In 2019, Angelo Gordon joined forces with Melburg, a UK-based real estate and venture capital investment specialist firm with a countrywide portfolio of prime commercial real estate. Together, the two firms acquired 100,000 square feet of office space in the center of Bristol (south west England) for an undisclosed amount. 

A prominent occupier of this building is the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), taking up around 60,000 square feet of space at an average rental rate of £12.75 (around $17.30) per square foot—so around £756,000 ($1.04M) in total.

Industry City (Brooklyn, New York)

In 2020, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, purchased an undisclosed stake in Angelo Gordon’s Sunset Park asset in the Brooklyn area of New York City—an asset comprising six million square feet (or more than twice the size of the Empire State Building, as calculated by Untapped New York) of waterfront industrial space. GIC’s investment brought the total valuation of the vast redevelopment project to $1.3B. 

However, the redevelopment was subject to a local fight over rezoning plans between the developers (arguing in defense of job generation and increased tax revenue) and community opponents (arguing against gentrification and the development’s environmental impact). 

In September 2020, the developers lost the battle, withdrawing their application for rezoning days after state and local congressional representatives submitted a letter condemning the proposal.

Motorama Ladenstadt (Munich, Germany)

In 2021, the firm teamed up with Accumulata (a German real estate development company), Schmülling Beteiligung, and L-REA GmbH (both German real estate investors) to purchase just over 258,000 square feet of mixed-use space in Munich from Gazit-Globe for €87M (approx. $98.6M).

This recent deal marks Angelo Gordon’s first investment in the Munich real estate market.

Now back to you...

We hope this Angelo Gordon REPE fund profile was useful for broadening your industry knowledge in preparation for your upcoming real estate private equity interview. Now you have the theory in place: are you prepared with the right strategies to put your best foot forward at the interview stage, both technically and behaviorally? 

Let us help you get set up for your new career in REPE: check out how we can support your career goals at Leveraged Breakdowns.

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About the Author: 

Melody Sadé Abeni is a London-based writer who specialises in commercial real estate content. As a generalist member of the Leveraged Breakdowns team, she crafts detailed posts geared towards those curious about the real estate private equity life. 

In her former professional life, Melody supported senior corporate executives as a global mobility consultant and did her time in both management consulting and specialist asset management firms.