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Hey, hey. Welcome to the next episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, where we have what we hope to be compelling, interesting, and informative conversations with iconic figures, leaders in the commercial real estate industry. I'm your co-host Steve Bloom, and I am super excited about today's show 'cause we have what is truly an iconic figure, one of the real leaders in investing in the, in western, uh, commercial real estate. And that is our guest, mark Bruton from Bruton Global, which also owns Brixton Capital and Westco Capital. But before we bring in our guest, let me introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie, how you doing today? Hey, How you doing Steve? What's going on? Doing well. Doing well. Great to see you. Yeah. Excited about the show. Yes. Oh, yeah. I, I can't wait to sit down and talk to Mark that. That'll be Great. It'll be interesting. Well, tell, tell the audience a little bit about Allstar Group and your upcoming event. No problem. Allstar Group was founded in 1995. Uh, we started out as income property lending, which it was a commercial real estate brokerage firm, but we've, uh, geared more towards events. Allstar Group does commercial real estate events throughout the state of California. Uh, we have one in Southern California, one in Orange County, uh, long Beach, and then one up in Northern California. All of our events are to get people associated with, and to find out who's lending right now in commercial real estate. Excellent. Well, hope that people get out there more. You know, we've got our event, uh, coming up. Many of you know, rent tv, uh, our media company now in our 25th year. We have our news and information website, daily news about the real estate industry and transactions, uh, our email blast and our email blast business, which is great. Our conferences, uh, our next conference is coming up March 26, our Greater LA Event, uh, panels for office, retail, multifamily, industrial and Finance. And then we have the review. Uh, there's video platform where you're watching, uh, there's video searchable platform for real estate videos. Very powerful, very exciting. Uh, hope you guys delve into it a bit more, uh, after this show. Um, and speaking of our show, we've got a great guest, Arnie, but before we bring in our guests, we got some business to tend to those sponsors that make this show happen. Uh, and our first one is Chase Partners. They are an amazing long-term, uh, client of ran TVs. And, uh, now we welcome them as a sponsor of CRE Talk. Uh, many of you know them, uh, and they're, uh, CEO David Parker, one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout SoCal for over 30 years. And now as a supporter of Red tv, they're now sponsoring the show to help get the word out about an updated strategy for Chase, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties, uh, with non-performing debt. So, if you're an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision and a fast close on your property, please contact Chase Partners atDavid@chasepartners.com. We'll get their info on the screen, david@chasepartners.com. Who's next? Arnie, Our next sponsor is a longtime sponsor of the All-Star Group as well. Uh, fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. It was founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon, also known as Uncle Chuck. Uncle Chuck. They're known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McLean at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3 for Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Excellent. And, uh, the last sponsor of the show is commercial real estate inspectors service that's really needed these days in California and in la that's for sure already in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive, simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Called Tiffany Simington. That's Tiffany Simington. And book your inspection today, getting the info's on the screen here. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. All right, Arnie, time for our guest Time to bring him in. Yes, let's welcome Mark Bruton, uh, CEO of Bruton Global. Mark, good afternoon. Welcome. Thank you for coming in today. Welcome, Mark Afternoon, and thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. Excellent. Well, we've got a lot to cover. I know we're all pretty busy. I know we're, you know, got, uh, breaks a little while, so let's get right into it. Uh, for our audience, some that aren't, you know, aren't Dunno all that you do, why don't you describe the companies, uh, you own and, uh, the corn portfolios and, you know, thinking Brixton and Westco and Westtown, and, uh, we'll go from there. Sure. Uh, thanks. I, I started in 1979 and, uh, started in San Diego, California after moving here from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But we formed a company early on with, with my partner Jay Scheler, the Scheidler Group. Mm-hmm. And, uh, so originally I started out with, with Jay before even pre Jay, I started as a, as a, uh, leasing and shopping center, uh, developer, leasing agent and shopping center developer. Then once I, I teamed up with Jay, I became an acquirer of portfolios, mainly portfolios in the western us and those portfolios ended up be becoming rolled into a series of IPOs in the early nineties. And, um, fast forward to today, um, while I'm not actively partners with Jay anymore, I broke off, I formed a series of companies, some with Jay and some without, but the first company that we formed together was called Westcorp. And so that was in the late nineties, and that is a private industrial REIT headquartered in San Diego, California. And then subsequent to forming Westcore, I formed Westco Europe, uh, without Jay in Europe, and now we're in, in five Western European countries, uh, with the same thesis, which is buying industrial properties and, and, and then redeveloping airports, which is another business I'll touch on in a minute. Right. And, uh, and today we have the industrial businesses, Westco and Westco Europe, and then a, an extension of what started out as our family office, uh, in a company called Brixton. And Brixton today operates two separate and distinct investment silos, a multifamily, uh, multifamily community investment business, and an anchored shopping center business. Uh, and both of those businesses operate under the rubric of Brixton Capital. Mm-hmm. And then separate and distinct from those companies, the Westco companies and the Brixton Company. Uh, we have, uh, a management vehicle called UAG United Department Group that's headquartered in Texas. And that manage, that company manages about 32,000 units, of which we own somewhere between three and 4,000 units. It, it, it varies. Right. And then I touched very briefly on, on our airport business. It's called a DP Airport Development Partners, uh, headquartered in Switzerland, Geneva. And that company, uh, at first started as an advisory business to regional airports in Europe. And then we ended up acquiring an airport in Sury in the UK just outside of London. Now we have two other additional airports that we are negotiating to acquire and redevelop. I can't imagine wrapping my head around owning airports like the, well, yeah, there, there's, there's a series of complexities around it, around around the, uh, reputations regulatory framework. But, yeah. Well, before, before we move on to the next question, how big is the Brixton and Westco, uh, portfolios in terms of square footage Properties? A UM We have about 2 billion of a UM at Brixton. Right. We're at about four and a half billion of a UM at West Corp. And we're just touching at around 800 million, uh, in, in Europe. And then of course, the third party, uh, UAG business is about three and a half billion. So the way I, the way I, I like to think about it is we're about nine and a half billion of a UM, of which we own six and a quarter, the six and a half billion. So that's the way it's excellent now. Excellent. So you talked about getting started with, uh, aler, and that was your partner. Uh, and, um, but what made you get into real estate and then of course, commercial real estate. What, what was it that attracted you to it? Well, I, I always wanted to be a doctor, and I was kind of a washout, so Didn't Have, I didn't have a lot of choices. No. Now, I, I did have, I did have some, some choices and I was always interested in, in, um, real estate. And my father, who was a professor, uh, gave me several books when I was young. Mm-hmm. I was 13 about, um, how I turned $10,000 into a million dollars by William Nickerson. I'll never forget that. Mm-hmm. Still have a copy on my desk. And so I looked at that book and read it a bunch of times, and I thought, you know what? Regardless of what happens in college, I want to own and operate buildings. So I was, I always carried that with me, even though I was pre-med. And I, I did have a kind of a rigorous science, but, you know, education. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, you know, I, I really want to own and operate buildings. Hmm. Interesting. So after you split, why did you wanna start your own firm? Why, why did you decide that, you know what, I think it's time for me to take control and do it myself? Well, when I was partners with Jay, it really was tantamount to, to our own firm because we were 50 50 partners. We operated really as a, as a, a true partnership. Uh, and the other executives were partners as well. But it was a great, it was just a great, um, way to turbocharge my, my learning, um, a learning curve as well as, as a UM mm-hmm. Uh, working with Jay 'cause he is just a very bright, uh, bright light and just a, a tremendous, uh, lexicon of, of knowledge. And so that really was, that really was, uh, a, a great divin time in my career when I was jumping from sort of small time developer into, into a much larger scale acquirer. And then I continued with Jay really for a long time until 2003 when we sold all of the assets of our company. So at that time, we owned Westcorp Properties together, and then I got an offer that, uh, couldn't refuse, and we sold all the assets. And so at that time, Jay said, okay, well great, let's distribute the cash. We had a, I think about 25 or 26 employees and a bunch of cash and no assets. And so Jay said, all right, um, it's your, it's your deal from here on out. And, and at that point, I hired A-A-C-E-O, uh, was, it was around 2005 that I hired the CEO, uh, fellow by the name of Don Ankin. He's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant guy. Yep. And so I said, Don, we have a bunch of cash. We have some fantastic employees, and, uh, why don't you take it from here and let's, let's, uh, recharge, re recharge our engines and, and get going. And so he said, okay, not a problem. Let's, uh, let's go raise some additional cash. Let's go buy some assets. And so he started doing that and, uh, did it in, in a great and grand way. And then I surprised him by saying, notwithstanding our new relationship, I'm moving to Europe. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nice. Well, when you started, were there certain, you know, asset classes, were you just interested in the real estate business in general, or, you know, like westcore with industrial? Were you attracted to that asset class, you know, or others, uh, that became, uh, more favorite for you? I would say I was always attracted to shopping centers. I thought since I was a little kid that I really liked shopping centers, strip shopping centers, right. Grocery anchor shopping centers. And I thought it was a good place to hang out. I always hung out in shopping centers when I was a kid, and I thought that this would be a grand thing to, to operate and own. So that was really my first love, or it was a shopping center business. And Jay, Jay wisely, um, I would say Lean leaned or, or helped me understand another set of asset classes, office and industrial o now offices kind of a four letter word today. Right. Industrial certainly wasn't. Yeah. And so I, I quickly learned that industrial was much easier to operate, own and operate, lease and manage than shopping centers ever were so interesting. I put almost all of my focus, um, during the, uh, I'll call it the late eighties and early nineties into the industrial building, uh, and, and investment management business with, with Jay. Nice. Now go back to your first real estate deal. What, what was that deal that got you hooked on doing this as a career? Yeah. So what got me hooked was, uh, when I, when I started out as a leasing agent, I started going around, I didn't have any money and, but I did have a lot of shoe leather. And so I started, uh, working throughout San Diego and kind of southeast San Diego. And I quickly glommed on to a few tenants, and the first tenant was seven 11, and I got to be buddies with the seven 11, um, man regional manager. And I said, I, I'll find you a bunch of seven 11 locations. And he said, great. And the only, the only problem Bruton is that I don't wanna own them. I just wanna rent. And I said, you know what I wanna own. So he said, look, why don't you go into this area and these corners and see if you can buy one of these properties? So I went to, uh, guy, guy named Joe Raso, it's an old Italian guy, knocked on his door, and for $175,000, he sold me this, uh, property in, in, uh, paradise Valley, in kind of the national city area of San Diego County. And of course, I didn't have $175,000 at the time, nor did I have the $225,000 it would take me to build the seven 11 store. So what I did is I got, uh, seven 11 to sign a 20 year lease. Nice. I took that lease to the bank, and the bank at that time lent me about 98% of the money Wow. Required to both buy the, buy the property, and sorry about that. Buy the, buy the property. And, and let me, uh, disconnect that, buy the property, and then sell, uh, and, and build the building for, for seven 11, which was, which was a great, you know, great opportunity for me to get started. And now, certainly you can't do things like that today. You can't No. Go to the bank and, and finance 95 or a hundred percent of the, uh, you know, the cost of the asset. It's, it's much, much more difficult to, to do that today. But back then, uh, with credit, you could get what's tantamount to a credit tenant, uh, lease finance or, you know, structured finance. Sure. Which, uh, which is, which is almost impossible to do, do today. Okay. Yeah. And how about the decision, you know, one of the things that, you know, the history, you know, you're did so well with westcore, that decision then to create Brixton move into another, you know, uh, asset type as big as you did, was that difficult? It was sort of born by necessity, because what happened was, uh, something that I learned and still don't quite understand it, but at that time, I had a whole series of shopping centers that I'd aggregated. And then when I moved into the industrial business, I found that the, the team members that I had assembled, the property managers in particular, didn't like the other asset classes. So we had the retail people, they didn't even really mingle very well with the industrial folks. And so you said, Hey, Bruton, why don't you open up another industrial business? Because we don't really, we don't even like having coffee with these industrial folks. We're we're retail folks we're special. Yeah, yeah. And so we, we quickly found that these teams didn't mesh. They didn't really, uh, share best practices. They're really different, different folks, different personalities. So we said, okay, all right, fair enough. We're gonna open up another office across the hall. So love a retail, we'll have a shopping center company here, and we'll have an industrial company over there. And sure enough, it that worked for a while. And then, uh, once the, uh, we, and we had different, two, two different people running those, those businesses, but they didn't even want to share coffee. I mean, the, uh, that's Fascinating. Literally. Yeah. I remember one instance where, where, um, a couple of the property managers went across the hall to get coffee from the coffee pot. And, uh, the industrial folks said, you know, get out of our coffee. Ah, Surprised they were okay being in the same building, you know? Yeah. The retail guys probably had lattes. That's exactly, exactly. Hey, are there any transactions that you look back and you regret that didn't work out and, and, uh, you learned any kind of lesson that might be why you moved onto something else? Well, I would say I've always learned lessons along the way. And one lesson that I learned, um, was never trade yield for basis. Hmm. And so the, the mistakes, I mean, we bought about 950 properties, and I would say we've had about nine or 10, uh, problems. And all, almost all of those problems was centered around, uh, me being diluted by the yield. So, in other words, one deal that I can remember started out at 11 or 12% initial yield, and I knew that that yield was transitory. It wasn't gonna last forever, but I thought, you know what? I'll be able to replace that yield once the, the lease burns off in five years. Unfortunately, when that high yielding lease burned off, it was a very, very bad time to finance, and a much lower yielding tenant came in, and the lender called the loan. And so that, that created a, a bit of stress or distress for me at the time. And I said, you know, I'm not gonna ever make that mistake again. And I've always, since then, I've always been able to effectively watch basis and try to try to be a low cost provider of commercial space in the areas that we trade in, which, uh, allows us a, a margin of safety or a margin of error in the event that rents do decline. And, and clearly real estate's a cyclical business. Mm-hmm. And being in a cyclical business, you've gotta be careful that you, um, a don't overpay, b don't over and have the, the financial wherewithal in, uh, commercial downturn to be able to sustain yourself and sustain the assets until the cycle is level out, allow. Excellent, Excellent. On the flip side, when you look back on your career, is there one standout project, uh, development or accomplishment that you look at, no matter how big or small it could be a a, a tiny one that you look back on and say, Hey, that was, you know, I'm particularly proud of that. I would say there's a couple of them that come to mind right away. I mean, one that, that, uh, just stands out was, was a, uh, commercial property in Del Mar clo close to my house and across the street from the racetrack that I had my eye on since I got outta college, because it's where I bought my gas, and it was an am em mini market. And I said, you know, it's right at a full diamond freeway, off ramp, tremendous corner. And it was a little bit downtrodden. And I said, you know, I, I gotta find out who owns this because I I, I should be owning it instead of them. And so I found out that it was owned by a fellow in Klamath Falls, Oregon. And I called the guy who was a contractor, called him, and he said, I don't think I'm gonna sell it, but come up here and go fishing with me, come fishing. I said, all right. That's old school. When was this? Uh, this was in 1982. That is old school. Okay. That's old. Yeah, 1983. So I went up, I I, I'm no fisherman, but I went up there and I, I knocked on his door and it was a ratty, ratty old rat trap of a place. And he opened the door, it was 10 o'clock in the morning, and I sat down, I said, okay, let's go fishing. And he said, well, before we go fishing, I like to start drinking. Oh, wow. Oh, geez. He opened up his drawer and he put a bottle of Jack Daniels and I, I mean, I barely drank, but I said, right. Oh God. Write him up room. Yeah. Him up. So he, uh, he pulled out the Jack Daniels, and, and we had a couple of shots. And then after that he said, okay, you seem like a good young kid. I'll sell it to you for, uh, 275,000, but I don't want, uh, the money, I just want a down payment enough to pay my taxes. Wow. So for 75,000 down, he sold me the property. And that property today, I think generates 490 or 500,000 a year of ground rent. Wow. So it was a crazy, you know, crazy economic deal and a crazy set of circumstances. You don't regret that. That's a great story. No, I, I, I, uh, That's a great one. I was, I'd be proud of that too. That's a great story. I'm glad I asked that Question. I know exactly where that, that center is. 'cause I used to go down to, uh, uh, Solana Beach and Del Mar all the time around the, the, so I know exactly the property. I'm not too far from that hotel. Well, you know, we know how you found that one, but typically how, now, now that just settled and, you know, known how, how do you find new, uh, projects or deals? Are brokers bringing in deals? Do you have a bunch on your radar screen already? Uh, how, how does that happen? Yeah. I'm just looking at my, my deal board. I've got, uh, 13, 13 shopping centers in various stages of escrow or negotiation. And of those 13 deals, I would say, uh, nine were brought by brokers and the other Oh, nice. The others I sourced. And a lot of times, uh, the ones that I source will be, will be contiguous or down the street from properties that are already own. So I'm constantly calling my neighbors or, uh, you know, contiguous property owners and trying to expand our, uh, our reach. And I get, I usually get a pretty good, uh, reception when I call those folks. Yeah. So even though you're buying portfolios of companies and, and whole companies at a time, still sounds like you get right into the weeds on these individual properties and, and, you know, the pricing and the analysis, um, which is great. I, you know, is that, is that really the case? Yeah, I would say that when, when I had my, uh, I had my personality or, or this aptitude test taken in high school, and it said that I was really best suited, uh, as a brick layer. Well, yeah, that's, I think that, uh, when they had brick layers, uh, I think that I, I'm kind of a plumber, electrician, brick, brick layer mentality in terms of wanting to get my hands dirty at all times. Right. I want to get in there, I want to, I want to meet people, I wanna form relationships. I want to get things done. But I, I, I realize I can't be a micromanager as well. So usually what I do is I, I take the first shot at, at getting, you know, getting a deal procured or getting something across the transom, and then I let our very capable, uh, team members take over from there. I mean, we have 1100 employees across the different verticals, and they're some of the best, you know, best sharpest, highest quality folks out there in the business. And I let them do their, do their, their work, and they, they do it beautifully. Well, I, I know from, you know, the requests for speakers at my conferences, your acquisition folks and leasing folks are certainly, uh, top notch, you know, but then when you're getting ready to sign a deal, is it return on equity, return on investment, a gut feel cash? How, you know, how, how intensive is the analysis? And when you're signing that, when you're making that signature, what's really the deciding factor? It's a great question. And I would say that, um, a lot of it is initial gut feel. Now, what does that mean? What does well gut feel just means that, uh, you layer years and years of experience and, and many hundreds of transactions. And that sort of forms the consortium of, of, uh, your, the thought process and, and, and the gut feel. But it's, we're very analytical. So I can have all the gut feelings that I want, and once I bring it in the front door, it, it goes through a myriad of, of, uh, hands here. And we're, we're highly institutional. I mean, our folks that run our business come from Goldman Sachs and Invesco, and we have Right, a very, uh, bottoms up set of underwriting and, and analytics that go into our decision making process. And that includes first and foremost our basis, as I mentioned earlier. You know, what is our basis, then it, and then we start to look at our current cash return and our, our future cash return on how we differentiate between current and future and what we need to do in terms of CapEx redevelopment, um, renovation, transitional uses. You know, we have a whole plethora of, I'll call 'em value creation initiatives. We look at the cost of implementing those value creation initiatives, and then look at the concomitant returns. The, as of returns, we say, is it worth it? Is it juice worth the squeeze? Yeah. But that's a very gut level. Right. Well, that's what I'm saying. Well, when you do all this analysis, does your gut overtake it or you let the, the analytics help your gut realize to either go with it or let it go? Probably a combination, right? That's a combination, but I think, I think it's really letting the analytics reaffirm my gut. Yeah. Because there's been some times that my gut's been wrong, and I want the numbers to do the talking in the end, and, and I let, I let the numbers, uh, dictate the outcome. Right. Now, let me ask you, since I'm in the financing industry, how do you finance your, your, your properties, uh, debt equity? Uh, do you get a bunch of investors? Do you go to, I, I mean, I know you were on the board of a few banks. Do you go to banks? Um, where, where does the money come from? It really depends on the silo. So we have these series of businesses, which are really investment management businesses, right? The West Core US investment management business is comprised of a state teacher's pension fund that, uh, owns 49% of the, uh, a UM and then 51% by the executive. So in that particular case, that state teachers pension fund, along with a series of insurance companies, have provided billions of dollars of capital to, um, co-invest with the executive team. So that, uh, that's a highly institutionalized equity, um, capital raise, vis-a-vis that platform. It happens. Go ahead. It's far different with the other investment businesses are different. The, uh, Brixton business really started out as our family office. We brought in some other families along the way to partner with us while we would put up, we being our family would put up 20 to 50% of the equity in every deal. And then in, uh, in, in, in a relatively short period of time, our pipeline exceeded our wallet. So we said we have a choice to go to other institutions and go the, uh, call it the institutional JV route or partner up with, with, uh, some other like-minded families. And generally, generally, we chose the latter rather than the former. So we have done many, many institutional JVs with great firms like Angelo Gordon and, uh, dune and DRA. And so, uh, and then, um, I would say those are, those are intermediaries. We've also done with direct deals with, like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley's of the, of the world, Allstate Insurance. Uh, and there are fine firms, really, really great firms, but we've felt that our, our culture here meshes best with other like-minded families. Okay. Good. Right. And I saw, which I think dovetails, you know, I was going, doing some research on your website, and I saw 2024, the recent launch of, uh, Broughton Private Access. Yes. So I guess that's, uh, the next, is that, is that the people who invest directly with you or, Yes. Excellent. Those, those folks, um, invest side by side with us, and we'll put up a, um, you know, a portion of the equity, and then they'll put up the balance of the equity, and we will do, um, end up doing a series series of transactions with those folks and hold the assets from five to 10 years, really depending on the business plan for the asset. And then we try to, we try to be as, uh, tax efficient as we possibly can by, by rolling forward that equity and compounding our equity in a tax deferred manner with a 10 31 exchange, uh, when and if possible. Right. And that's a perfect lead into my next, the next question is, you know, the decision to fully exit deals, not just the exchange, but then actually sell and, and roll the assets. How do you end up making that decision to some of these funds have certain time deadlines or when you reach certain milestones? Well, no, because we have not created funds on the private side. And really over on the Westco side as well, really not so much in the fund management business as the investment management business. We have, we did form a few funds in the early nineties, one with, uh, DuPont Pension Fund, which was very successful. We returned, I think 48% net to DuPont. But since then, we really haven't formed funds per se, but we've, we've capitalized deals on an individual or sometimes a portfolio basis. Um, and the, the life, the life of that vehicle really centers around the business plan. If it's, if it's, uh, I'll call it a light duty business plan with just some, uh, light renovation, possibly, uh, facade work, you know, that that asset may only be held for three or four years, and there's other assets that are, uh, much more complex. Delmar Plaza is one, one example that was very complex and, uh, a lot, lot of, uh, city issues and regulatory issues that we had to get through in order to, to maximize its value. And that's, you know, that's more like a 7, 8, 10 year hold. Right. Yeah. Do You ever, do you ever just get, like, get a broker that comes along and this offers you a great price for a property, so you say, okay, we'll, we'll sell It does Sure. That ever come up? Sure, I'll all happens all The time. Come up all the time. Okay, good. Tell me, tell me no. And, and, and we go through that, um, you know, the mental exercise of, of saying that, that if we don't take that, that offer, then we just rebought it at that price. Right? Yeah. True. So, right. Ourselves, you know, are we a seller or do we wanna rebuy? And many times we like the asset and we feel like there's a lot of upward momentum in the rent roll, and we will just hold, which is a tantamount to a rebuy. Right. Or we'll pull the, pull the trigger and sell. Certainly not afraid of selling. Yeah. Right. So, you know, you mentioned earlier, I mean, you, you've got a bunch of projects right now you're working on, and I, I wanna get back to that, but I wanna talk to you about your expanding to Europe. Uh, why, why did you decide to expand to Europe? Was it an opportunity? Were there good projects? What made you decide to go to Europe? Well, I like to say it wasn't my decision. Ah, but my wife said in, uh, 2004, 2005, you know, you've had five capital events in your career, these IPOs and a series of portfolio sales in 2003, the sale of the company. So she said, you know, it's, it's time for you to either retire or take a long sabbatical. And so I said, okay, well, don't really see it that way, but sure. So we moved to Switzerland and kids went to school there in Switzerland and the Alps, and we lived in a small town called Vilar, uh, where they really didn't speak much English har hardly at all. So it was, it was, it was a bit uncomfortable at first. Our kids, uh, picked up French pretty, pretty quickly. I was a little bit slower, slower at the draw. But one thing that I knew that I didn't want to do after 30 days of 35 cappuccinos, I mean it was a cappuccino a day or maybe two, was that I was not gonna sit in a town of 1800 drinking cappuccinos all day. Uh, much as much as I liked my wife, loved my wife, uh, it wasn't gonna happen. So I decided to, um, start nosing around, and I ended up opening an office in Geneva after about 90 days. And I hired two young smart guys that were my bankers at UBS, uh, stole them from UBS, and we opened up an office, and then we just started buying buildings. We found them all, all over the place. And, uh, that was really tremendous start to, to our, uh, our European operation. But what happened was, because we were dealing mostly with multinationals, um, those multinationals ended up taking us to other countries Interesting. Rather, rather than the other way around. So Phillips, Coca-Cola, Siemens, those were all DuPont. All all of these companies that we started doing business with in Switzerland said, we have a facility in Vienna, in London, in Berlin, Germany. So we said, sure, you know, we'll go anywhere. And we ended up doing multiple deals. Dozen. So you would buy out the owner with the lease ready in hand? Yes. Nice. So Was that, uh, was that fruitful for you? I mean, it must have been, I mean, did you find it a new challenge now being in Europe versus the United States? Or is it, was it about the same, just different location? It was much more challenging because there was different rules of law, uhhuh, different languages, different culture and customs and different currency. So I would say that it was very difficult and very complex, but I wanted, my first thought in really opening the business was that at the time I wanted to diversify currencies, I, I thought all my net worth is in American dollars. Right. And if, uh, if the worst outcome ever were to take place, I want to have a, uh, some very, very safe currency in a very safe market. And Switzerland certainly qualifies Yeah. For both of those. Um, I'm very, very safe country. So still Long in those Europe country, European countries in those markets. Absolutely. Absolutely. Nice. And I thought I could expand from there and go into other countries like London and uk, um, UK and London, and that that also would provide some level of safety and, and good appreciation, which they, they have now, the rule of law is tricky. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't advise it for a lot of folks because you just, there's, there's things that you just don't realize until you get in, get into it in terms of, you know, landlord, tenant, um, law. Right. Uh, the way judges see things are a lot different than the way judges in, in America, Basic definition of property ownership. Right. This Is different. Correct. And these are so socialistic countries like France where a landlord's not necessarily a, a good, a good word, a good term. It's Right. Not a good noun. Interesting. Well, let's shift shift over to, uh, the current situation. What, let's, uh, talk about things you're working on now, you know, exciting deals. Uh, you said you got a lineup of, of nine or 10 deals that you were looking at while we were talking a minute ago, or some, or some projects you've got underway. Any, any standout that you're excited about? Recent acquisitions or current projects? Well, I would say I'm, I'm very excited about, um, Westcore us. I mean, we've got a new CEO we're interviewing now as our current CEO, uh, is in the, uh, I'll call it succession planning and retirement phase. And we have, uh, a brilliant young guy who, um, we are talking with now as, as his successor, which creates a lot of excitement and, and verve around, uh, I'll call it a, a new beginning and a new growth pattern. I think that our, our goal with Westcore is to get into the 10 billion, uh, a UM range within the next five years. And I think that this young man can do so, so I'm very excited about that. Also, very excited about the appointment of a new president at Brixton, which just happened in January. We hired a, a very aggressive, smart young man named Rob Taylor to lead the charge at, uh, at Brixton Capital. And he comes from, from, uh, Invesco, uh, an Invesco background for a long time, and he's, he's very, very sharp young man. And so I'm excited about that. Excited. It's gotta be Big for you to bring on a, someone like that, uh, in that role, huh? Oh, yeah. I just love it. I love, uh, working with him and I'm gonna love working with this new gentleman over at, at, uh, at Westcore as well. And I think both of these companies have got a, a great trajectory with, with very, very strong leadership. So I, I would say that what I'm looking forward to is, is the growth that I see ahead and I see, I see growth through, through new, of course, through new, new leadership, but also through, uh, new capital formations. We have a fair amount of good capital partners that we are working with at, uh, at Westcorp, as well as we have a great, uh, capital partner that we're, we are negotiating with at Brixton as well for, uh, a partnership in our, uh, shopping center business. Not, not in the apartment business, but we're still doing those deals individually. But if we are successful with this, um, with this, uh, fund manager to partner with at the, uh, at the Brixton retail level, it will turbocharge our growth trajectory significantly. And that's in the US side. Over on the Europe side, I'm most excited about the two airports that we're in right to acquire now, because one is about 1,000,000,002 deal, and the other one's about 500 million. So those two deals alone will take our a UM call it from 800 to, you know, two and a half billion or so. So that's, uh, that would be really great for the European teams. Yeah. Excellent. Uh, well, you know, we were just gonna ask you about the air airport here. That's a great, great summary. That's what are you gonna look to, uh, uh, expand that and try to replicate that? Or is that kind of a rare opportunity? Is that like a one-time thing, or is that mostly in Europe, or are you looking at stuff like that here in the United States too? We haven't really, well, actually, we, about 20 years ago when we started the airport business, we, we looked at a couple of deals here in terms of some of the, uh, privatizing some of the, uh, the regional airports, and never really got a good foothold until we moved to Europe. And then it was a little bit, um, you know, it was a little bit easier to transact. But I would say that it's a very difficult business. It's, it's, uh, really led by major infrastructure funds, not, not small guys like myself. Right. And so it's all, You can find a way to keep El Toro open or Santa Monica airport open. Yeah. Closing those thousand, especially, what a great a piece of property that is. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's got a, like a 3,800 foot runway, which, uh, causes planes to crash into hangar. So not the, we Don't, we don't wanna see any more of that given the recent news. No, exactly. Tough, tough news. Well, then, you know, what, what are the, your, uh, back to, you know, what you see going forward, what do you see as the biggest challenges, you know, in, in the real estate investing today overall and, you know, within the sectors that you're in? Well, I would say the uncertainty, the capital market's uncertainty with interest rates, they really haven't come down. Uh, this, uh, this new administration is quite unpredictable. And, uh, we're seeing a lot of, a lot of unusual activity that didn't, didn't necessarily predict. And who knows what the ripple effect in the capital markets will be. I thought that we're immediately going to see lower inflation and lower interest rates, and now with the tariffs and all of the, the concomitant side effects from, uh, and the other way, yeah, it looks like it might go the other way. So that uncertainty causes some headwinds and causes some difficulty in, in, in creating flow, you know, deal flow when you really don't know how the financial markets are going to treat you. But there's always a opposite, you know, it's like physics, there's an equal and opposite effect. Uncertainty is really pretty good for, for what we do. We thrive on uncertainty. We thrive on, in inefficiency, we thrive in inefficient markets. We thrive on fear. So I think that, I look at my deal board and I, I can see all of the problems. I would say half, half of the deals on my, on, on the shopping center side, not the, not the apartment side so much, but on the shopping center side, are, have been fomented by, I either, I'll call it insurrection divorce. I see one, one gentleman has, uh, dementia, there's a bankruptcy here, there's an environmental problem there. So there's als, there's always, there's problems. And those problems are just what I wanna solve. Yeah. No, it's, it's a challenge to, to solve the problems. And, and when you get over that challenge, that makes it even, uh, better. Now, you, you mentioned something about, uh, um, um, California, you know, what, why are you not have that many developments in California, in the multifamily area? Are you finding that's difficult to, uh, um, to get going, or you just haven't seen the right one? We haven't. We've owned in California, and even though our acquisitions team said we are not crazy about the regulatory environment in California. Right. I love it. I mean, I, I, first of all, I love it. Love Here. Yeah. I love letting you Here if you own in, in it. Yeah. Right. And you're not the city of la I, I, I love many things about California, maybe not the, um, political or regulatory environment, but you take the good with the bad, and it's one of the deepest investment markets in the United States, if not the world, both, both coasts, you know, call it the New York Coast and Right. Uh, California coast. And so I believe that people will always wanna live here. I believe our weather's superior to any other state, and I think the long term appreciation for California is fantastic and will be fantastic for multifamily. So I want to spend a lot more time on California multifamily. Okay, good. All right. And so you're, you're general feeling about rental rates and, and their trends mostly gradually upward for retail, multifamily, and industrial with, you know, obviously some hiccups, but gradually for the most part, upward? Yes. Gradually upward. I mean, we're, we're in a supply and demand business, and there's a real, one of the reasons I'm so excited about retail is because there's such a paucity of supply for a long time. Very, very, um, SS small amount of building and not, not much building over the last seven, eight years. Right. And, And the removal of, you know, a Lot and the removal of a lot of properties demoing the malls. Yeah. I mean, there's just been a big sea change. So I believe that the supply has dwindled. I believe the replacement costs, construction costs are quite high, and there's not gonna be a, a, um, plethora of new projects built. So that all portends a very good, uh, landscape for rent growth. Now that said, uh, you initially said, you know, there, there's gonna be some ups and downs, and yes, there will be, because there are some, I'll call it post covid, um, you know, post covid issues, people burning through all of their covid, uh, surplus. And people are not, uh, people are worried about inflation, so discretionary spending might not maybe curtailed. And so all, all of that sort of, uh, can dampen rental increases. But by and large, I think it's a very good solid rosy picture for rent growth. On the retail side, on the apartment side, we had a very rocky 2024, and 2023 was a little rough as well, 25 and 26 much better because there was a, a glut in some, some cities like Phoenix, uh, you know, Austin, some, uh, some parts of Texas where there was a, a load of supply, uh, dumped on the market or, or I would say completions not dumped on the market. There was a lot of completions. And those completions led to concessions. Those concessions led to, uh, a dampening of, of rent growth. And so it's, that's flattened out and in some places declined. But that is a, uh, it's a transitory win because all of the prognostications that I've seen showing 2026 a, uh, significant set of rent spikes in, in these primary markets. Yeah. And, and generally we're under housed. So even though there might be certain local areas that get over their skis, it's gonna catch up at some point. Absolutely. Absolutely. Sure. Um, tell me about your leadership philosophy. My leadership philosophy is really focused on finding the best possible talent that I can find and letting them lead, but also, uh, leading by example in the interim. And so I, I'm in the office every day at, uh, seven o'clock and usually here till six o'clock at least. And so I, I work hard and I believe, I believe in hard work. Mm-hmm. And so I, I, I found that if you, you know, keep your nose clean and, and, uh, do what you say and work hard that others typically follow. And so if I, if I do have any style at all, it's, uh, to show people that I'm dead serious about, about what we do and, and passionate about what we do, and expect everybody to share that passion in some form might not be the same, because o an owner may be different than somebody else that, um, might not have direct ownership on it. It really, really depends on everybody's different. But you asked me about my leadership style. I'd say it's, uh, it's hard charging, it's hardworking, and, uh, and then letting people thrive and not micromanaging them, because that's, that's the worst management style, uh, that you could possibly have. Right. Good. No, that's great. Great Philosophy. Well, uh, on, on a quick, a quick answer to this one. If, if you had someone start, someone starting in the business, you know, or, or you knowing what you know now and you were starting out, what, what part of the business would you advise them? Or would you, uh, enter? Right. Well, I would, that's a tough one. I would say that the easiest to enter, it's, it's, I think it's difficult to enter the business just graduating from college, because unless you're an analyst and a really good one, it's hard to break into the business. I know. It was really, that's how I Started. Yeah. You go, wow. Yeah, I started as a leasing person, but I had to camp out for a day in the lobby of the development firm to get noticed, and I wouldn't leave until they dragged, dragged me out. And so it's hard to get noticed unless you have some particular, uh, skill or particular trait. A lot of times star athletes get noticed, or, uh, a great musician that happens to be, I mean, one, one guy that got an interview right away was a guy who had a great, uh, jazz saxophone background, but he was also an analyst. So Right. Stood out immediately, uh, as somebody, uh, but so to, let me get back to your question. If I were entering the market today, and I didn't have a particular skill that would get me an immediate interview, I'd enter in the property management business, because it's easy to find good work in a good company, and you learn everything. You learn the business from the ground up. Yeah. Then you can sort of catapult from there and expand into analytics and appraisal and finance. And there's lots of different ways to spread out once you're into the property management business. Uh, That's a great answer. Great answer. We're, we're getting close on time. I know Arne's got one question, you know, outside of real estate. But before we get to that, and I don't know if you've, you know, got a lot of thoughts on it, but given your position in the industry and, you know, everything that's going on in southern California, especially with the fires and the Palisades, do you have any thoughts on that, on the rebuilding and, and thoughts? Thoughts on the rebuilding and how that's going and, and how it should go? I know that, that we're, uh, process bound in California. We have really, uh, high regulatory threshold. I, I, I certainly hope that the politicians and the cities will relax those regulations and provide expedited, uh, timeframes to allow these folks to rebuild and get back into their homes. I think it's just calamitous and, and, and terrible, and, uh, never thought that I, I would see in my lifetime a whole, you know, town wiped out like, like Palisades and, uh, just never thought it would happen. I think it's unbelievably, uh, sad and, and, and terrible, and I'm just not sure how the rebuilding process will go. I don't know. That's A tough one. That that really is. It, it's, we'll watch, you know, and, and you can't point fingers. You gotta figure out a way to do it. And everybody, I think, is trying their best, but nobody really has the answer. And so, you know, hiring Steve, you know, br you know, I mean, ply Vista and LA live Well, no, He's, he's a good Quality, you know, at least it's the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. No, he kind does. He's a great guy. Steve's a great guy. Yeah. Okay. So tell us a little bit more about you, mark, your personal interest, your hobbies. We know, we know, uh, I don't know if we know, but I don't know if anybody else knows. You invested in some sports, uh, professional teams, uh, or a team. Uh, tell us about that And, and a standout charity. Well, Well, we'll get to that, that, that was gonna be my follow up, but I, I wanna learn about him first and what his interests are. Yeah. The sports interest was really around the development rights at the stadium. I, I was really, really interested in the development rights for the stadium, and I was partnered up with a, a group of investors who are, you know, really cool guys. A guy named Rich Inger, who was a long time, uh, friend. And, and, uh, he had the direct, uh, relationship with, with, uh, Ratner family. Right. And so, uh, I, I was really fascinated with the development rights, um, the, also selling the naming rights for the stadium. But what happened was when we tried to move the stadium from New Jersey, uh, we got sued by the people in Brooklyn and cost us a couple of hundred million dollars to, to fight with the lawyers and the lawsuits. And it ended up really dampening my interest in pro sports because it was so contentious. It took six or seven years of highly contentious fighting in order to get approval. And I think now the, you know, the Brooklynites are happy with the, with the product. Yeah. I think they're happy with the result. And it's a pretty, pretty darn cool place to, it is a Cool place. Oh, Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's almost like when they try to build SoFi and how many years were they trying to bring a team back to LA and look at like 20, like decades until they brought somebody back? Because everybody was fighting over where it should be and how it should be. And, and of course, you're down in the San Diego area, you lost the Chargers. Oh, yeah. Uh, and I'm sure they're not happy about that down there. And, and, you know, so it, it, it, it's tough 'cause you deal with real business and emotion at the same time. And, and, uh, but other than professional sports, do you golf, uh, do you, do you like to, uh, play basketball watch? No, what I do is I, I like to, I like to point out to my cauliflower ear. I like to do, uh, jut Brazilian juujitsu wrestling. So, ah, since, since I was a little kid, I've been on the mat, uh, wrestling, fighting, uh, I love any kind of combat sports. I like to, uh, almost every day I am in our gym, down in our basement here in our office building, and we have, uh, full-time trainers down there, and we have about 10, then we have about 12 people that are combat folks also that, that like to train juujitsu. And I do other types of martial arts trainings. I do, uh, knife training and, and, uh, baton training and things like that. Interesting. So, and weapons training, I do do handgun training, but my main, I'll call 'em my, my main, my main sports are Brazilian Juujitsu and Judo, which I've, and did you, And because of you doing it, have you gotten to like a bunch of the people in the, in the office in your company involved in it too? Almost? Yeah, I would say a lot. A lot. Nice. Yeah. All The analysts, all the, that'll Give you Get, get him fighting. But now let's get to charities. What, what, what is near and dear to your heart as far as, uh, uh, giving back? So we have two foundations and, and those foundations are focused on probably five primary areas. Uh, one is the environment, and we're really interested in cleaning up the ocean oceans, but particular, particularly plastics and microplastics and any, any kind of detritus in the ocean that, that, um, that, um, has, we put in there through, through the years. I mean, we, we've spent a lot of time and money donating to, to charities that focus on clean, ocean, clean environment. Uh, great Idea to talk to you about after this. Cool. Yeah. Then also we've got, uh, I'll, I'll call 'em the disenfranchised, um, disenfranchised groups, uh, segments of society that either can't afford school, can't afford, um, food, and those types of folks. We want to feed them, and we wanna make sure that they get the best possible education. So we have a whole series of scholarship initiatives set up at, uh, different schools and then also at large. And then a, a subset of, I'll call it the disenfranchised, is, uh, special education and special education centered around, uh, folks with learning disabilities. Uh, we, we invest heavily in schools that, uh, take care of our kids that have learning disabilities and need IEPs and special educational protocols to help them, uh, flourish in society. So we, we focus a lot on that. Right. Um, wow. Excellent. That's through the Proton Family Foundation? Yes. Right. Great. Great. Excellent. Okay, I, I think we've run out of time and questions. We promised you, you know, keep an, uh, an hour, you know, we know you're super busy, so we wanted to do our, you know, our, our part in keeping, keeping it on time and we'd love to have you back, you know, down the road to the future to hear about more of these, the, the things you're working on. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun and yeah, really enjoyed talking with you guys and, and telling you a little bit about what we do here. Well, We certainly appreciate the time. I know our audience is gonna get a lot out of it, so we, We love doing these because we get to find out about the person behind the company and, and that's, that's really what it's all about and it's all related to commercial real estate. So we really thank you for your time, mark and uh, thank you Mark. Look, look forward to speaking to you again soon And be best of luck with those deals going forward and, uh, wish you success over the next year. Thanks a lot. Alright. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners.