Los Angeles Capital Markets and Foreign Investment

Spencer Schlee, Senior Director, heads the Southwest region for Canyon’s opportunistic and value-add real estate platforms and is responsible for originating, structuring and executing both equity and debt investments.  Mr. Schlee joined Canyon’s acquisitions team in 2012 and has since worked on transactions investing over $1.0 billion of committed capital and totaling over $3.0 billion in total capitalization across various sectors including multifamily, hospitality, office, retail, senior housing and mixed-use.  Prior to joining Canyon, Mr. Schlee was an analyst at BlackRock in New York and is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles (B.A. Business Economics).  Mr. Schlee is also an Associate Board Member for the UCLA Department of Economics.

Zach is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Pender Capital. Zach co-founded Pender in 2015 and brings over 16 years of experience in both commercial real estate finance and capital markets expertise. Zach oversees the firm’s Investment and Research program which includes deal sourcing, research, and structuring and is a member of the Investment and Research Committee and the Management Committee. Prior to Pender, Zach served as Managing Director/ Senior Vice President for Liberty SBF, a commercial finance company based in Philadelphia, where he was responsible for establishing Liberty’s Western Regional HQ in Los Angeles and directed West Coast originations and operations. Zach personally originated over $60 million of commercial loans during the first year of operations on the West Coast. In 2008, Zach joined Silver Point Capital, LP in New York, a Goldman Sachs partner fund, where he was responsible for commercial real estate loan originations and insurance-linked securities trading. During his tenure at Silver Point, Zach traded more than $500 million in distressed commercial real estate debt, insurance-linked securities, and assets in the capital markets. From 2004 to 2008, Zach served as Senior Vice President/Division Director of Velocity Commercial Capital where he was the company’s highest grossing originator in e

Kenya Williams is an Executive Director in the Los Angeles office of J.P. Morgan’s Real Estate Banking Division (“REB”) within the Commercial Real Estate Group. In this capacity, Kenya originates on-balance sheet acquisition, construction, term loans, and a host of related financial services to public and private real estate funds and developers.   Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Kenya was a Senior Vice President and Market Manager at PNC Bank, managing its commercial real estate business in Southern California. Prior to joining PNC, Kenya spent 7 years in Wells Fargo commercial real estate practice, lending to both private and public real estate investors. Kenya received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in real estate finance from the University of Southern California. She is one of the founding members of The Regal Group, a networking group for women in real estate, and is a member of the USC Lusk Board, City of Hope LARE Council, and ICSC. A native Californian, Kenya lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Erin F. Natter joined Pircher, Nichols & Meeks in 2017 and is a partner in the firm’s real estate department. Ms. Natter’s practice focuses on sophisticated real estate finance, purchase and sales, sale-leaseback, and lease transactions, including the representation of institutional lenders, real estate funds, opportunity funds and other real estate investors in a wide variety of real estate transactions. Prior to joining Pircher, Nichols & Meeks, Ms. Natter drafted and negotiated agreements on behalf of lenders and borrowers in connection with mortgage and mezzanine financing transactions, sale-leaseback transactions and CDO transactions. She represented sellers and buyers in connection with real property acquisitions and dispositions. Ms. Natter managed and oversaw large multi-property loan, acquisition and sale-leaseback transactions. She drafted and negotiated commercial office leases, termination agreements, assignments, subordination agreements and licenses. The real estate asset classes represented by Ms. Natter’s practice range from five star, full-service resorts to office and retail buildings, as well as multifamily and mixed-use projects.

Prior to founding Miramar Capital, Mr. Fuhrman was Executive Director and Head of U.S. Acquisitions at Colony Northstar, Inc. (fka Colony Capital, Inc.). At Colony, Mr. Fuhrman led many of the firm’s flagship debt fund investments (Colony Distressed Credit and Special Situations Fund, I-IV). In addition, he was responsible for new strategic initiatives and participated in real estate-related fundraising efforts. From 2010 to 2014, Mr. Fuhrman also served as the CEO of Colony’s Asset Management Company. During his tenure at Colony Capital, Inc., Mr. Fuhrman was responsible for the sourcing and consummation of more than 40 investments representing more than $4.5B of total capitalization and $1.5B of invested equity. Prior to joining Colony in 2008, Mr. Fuhrman was an Equity Partner at Latham & Watkins, LLP where he co-chaired the firm's global real estate practice group. Mr. Fuhrman serves on the board of the Los Angeles chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In 2012, he founded the Make-A-Wish Real Estate Division which has raised over $2.0M to date. Mr. Fuhrman is a periodic guest lecturer at both the USC and UCLA law schools on the subject of real estate finance and investing. Mr. Fuhrman received his J.D. degree (Cum Laude) from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles in 1995 and his B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991.

Mike Hu has over 14 years of real estate and management consulting experience and currently leads the Capital Markets team in the US. He is currently based in the LA office (Gaw USA headquarters) and is responsible for capital formation, co-investments, investor relations and marketing. He joined Gaw in 2011 and was previously a member of Gaw Capital Partners’ acquisitions and investment team based in Hong Kong (the global headquarters), and formerly worked for Tishman Speyer as part of their Leadership Development Program. While at Tishman Speyer, he completed rotations in their London and New York offices, working in acquisitions, debt financing/restructuring, property and asset management, and design & construction. Prior to business school, Mike was a strategy and operations consultant for five years focused primarily on the real estate and energy industries. He has significant experience working in Asia, Europe, and the US. Mike is conversationally fluent in Mandarin Chinese. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics/International Area Studies with college and Latin honors from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Master of Business Administration from London Business School.

Mr. Chang is the Director of Acquisitions at Douglas Emmett. Prior to joining Douglas Emmett in 2015, Tuji was the Director of Acquisitions and Development at Kilroy Realty Corporation where he focused on investments, development and dispositions of Class A office and mixed-use properties. Tuji holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Mathematics from UC Berkeley and received in his MBA and Masters of Real Estate Development (MRED) from the University of Southern California.

Jonathan co-founded K2 Clean Energy Capital with Stephen Tsu in January 2013. K2 is one of the leading commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) energy project developers in the USA. K2 developed and funded over $10M of projects in 2017. K2 has strong expertise on PACE project development in the industrial, retail and hospitality sectors. K2 is headquartered in Silicon Valley with an office in TX and partners on the East Coast. K2 recently developed a $8.6M PACE financing for energy and co-generation systems for Verseon Corporation, a biotech company in Fremont, CA. Commercial PACE financing is an innovative, and rapidly growing financing solution, with over $500M of projects funded across the USA. PACE financing enables building owners and developers to fund a broad range of measures including HVAC, lighting, fenestration, seismic upgrades and renewable energies including solar and CoGen. PACE financing is repaid through a special assessment on the building’s property tax. California is a leader in PACE financing and is available in all major cities and counties. Owners and developers are turning to PACE financing because of several distinct advantages over conventional financing. PACE is non-accelerating, requires no personal guarantees and is considered off balance sheet. PACE financing was originally developed for upgrades to existing buildings but PACE is increasingly used in the capital stack on new construction projects. Jonathan is an engineer by training with a Masters degree from Carnegie Mellon University has over 25 years of executive experience in both large tech and renewables corporations, including Applied Materials. He has published several technical papers, patents and is active participant in the national PACE organization.

Keith J. Pollock is a real estate partner in our Los Angeles office whose practice involves a broad range of commercial real estate transactions, with a particular focus on leasing, the acquisition and disposition of individual properties and portfolios, and borrower side real estate finance. Keith's clients include investment companies, pension funds, banks, real estate investment trusts and other owners and operators of real estate throughout the country. In connection with his leasing practice, Keith represents both landlords and tenants in office, retail, industrial, medical, shopping center and other mixed-use projects throughout California, Colorado, Arizona, New York and various other states. Prior to joining Allen Matkins, Keith practiced in New York as a real estate associate with Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP and then Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP.