Cerberus Exec And Nonperforming Loan Expert Ron Rawald Dies At 56
Cerberus Capital Management Head of International Real Estate and Senior Managing Director Ronald Rawald has died. He was 56.
The private equity firm told investors of Rawald's death in a letter last week, without specifying a cause, PERE reports, though his death was characterized as unexpected.
Rawald had been with Cerberus for 15 years, at first as head of its European real estate division. In the wake of the Great Recession, he oversaw the expansion of the firm's investments in nonperforming real estate loans in Europe.
In 2017, Rawald became Cerberus' head of international real estate, operating from the company's New York headquarters. In that capacity, he facilitated the firm's investment in nonperforming loans not only in Europe, but also Asia and the Americas outside the United States and Canada.
Cerberus has long been a major player in the nonperforming loan space. Since 1998, the company has invested about $21.3B in more than 246 nonperforming loan transactions in 23 countries.
Before joining Cerberus, Rawald worked at Fortress Investment Group in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was responsible for commercial property investments in Europe. Before that, he was a co-founder of Aetos Capital, a private equity real estate fund specializing in Japanese assets.
Rawald lived in Tokyo in the late 1990s and early 2000s, working there with Lee Millstein at Morgan Stanley’s Special Situations Group, which invested in distressed Asian assets. Millstein is currently global head of real estate at Cerberus.
Rawald graduated from Indiana University in 1986 and later earned an MBA from Fordham University. He was a member of Cerberus’ Real Estate Committee and Real Estate Debt Committee.
Early this year, Rawald oversaw Cerberus' acquisition of 12 office buildings in Brazil from BR Properties, a major office building owner in Brazil. The portfolio includes seven properties in São Paulo and five properties in Rio de Janeiro and is valued at over $106M.
