Karlin's Quest

If you don't know Karlin Real Estate, here are one billion reasons why you should. (That's how much in plans to invest internationally.)

We sat down with managing director Matt Schwab. Karlin is the real estate investment arm of Karlin Asset Management, which is the family office of medical device mogul and retired orthopedic spinal surgeon Gary Michelson, with $1.5B under management. Karlin Real Estate was founded in 2008 to buy and finance real estate deals nationwide, with equity investments spanning office, industrial, multifamily, and retail. But it hasn't stopped there; last year, the firm acquired its first property in the UK and will close its fourth acquisition by the end of this month. (Good luck overcoming the language barrier.)

One of Karlin's many white boards, or perhaps the Argentinian flag. Three years ago, Karlin started a lending platform that provides bridge capital ($5M to $50M on first mortgage financing). To date, it's done over $300M, focused on value-add or transitional properties. It's also done several transactions where the borrower is buying back its own note from the current lender in a discounted purchase scenario. Karlin is now doing more of a combo of debt and equity structure where it provides a majority of the debt and then sliver equity.

Karlin is opening a UK office headed by Joe Self that will be fully operational in the next week. Where to next? Probably Spain. "We quickly got up to speed in the UK and are cautiously moving into Europe," he says. The firm's also eyeing the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and France, but there's no specific time frame for spending that $1B. At home, Karlin is planning its first ground-up development: an office building in Austin, where the company owns 2M SF and some 300 acres; it's high-growth because a lot of California tech firms are moving there.

In his spare time, Matt coaches his son's basketball team and is on the board of his kids' elementary school in Santa Monica. He and wife Pamela have two: Jordan and Zachary. Born and raised in LA, Matt worked for and was mentored by Hackman Capital's Michael Hackman, before co-founding Karlin Real Estate. "I'd never be able to do what I do today without his help." Fun fact: While bubbles are generally unloved in real estate, Matt loves Orbitz mint bubble gum.