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Oceancrest Advisory Services, LLC (“Oceancrest”), located in Wilmington, is a commercial real estate advisory firm offering a host of products and services that enable our clients to minimize risk and maximize investor returns. Our mission is to provide a level of service that exceeds the expectations of our clients through a strategic partnership.
John Lennon has a diverse background in the real estate industry with more than eighteen years of experience in property management, brokerage, asset management and real estate investment banking. As the managing partner for Oceancrest Advisory Services, John is responsible for business development and the oversight of developing strategic relationships throughout the industry.
In his role as an Asset Manager with Insignia Financial Group, one of the country's largest owner/operators of apartment and office properties, John was responsible for the firm's investment in the "B Piece" of REMIC 1 (SASCO,1992-M1) and oversaw the portfolio's watchlist, worked out defaulted or struggling assets in the portfolio and approved additional distributions. These efforts resulted in repositioning the firm's investment and allowing it to be resold at considerable profit. Additionally he served as the Asset Manager for Insignia's investment in Fresh Meadows, a 3,300 unit apartment property in Queens, N.Y. which was acquired in 1997 for $175,000,000. In that capacity John coordinated union labor negotiations, management restructuring and helped implement numerous operating efficiencies. John also served as Insignia's Asset Manager for its joint venture with Prudential Real Estate Investors, handling a portfolio of class A apartments, purchased by PREI on behalf of its pension fund clients, throughout the Mid-West region.
Having also worked in the investment banking side of our industry with First Union's Structured Finance Group, John has structured numerous debt and equity transactions from the lenders side. His responsibilities included due diligence and overall portfolio management with an eye toward risk mitigation and partner oversight. He was involved in the Structured Finance Group's first ever equity deal and provided development oversight throughout the project, a multi-family development in San Antonio, TX. As the Asset Manager for the group he interacted regularly with borrowers and insured compliance with complex, structured loan terms including cash flow participation deals and stringent reporting requirements.
While with Oceancrest, John has spearheaded several projects including the due diligence and collateral evaluation of a $120,000,000 pool of restaurant franchise loans. Retained by the Master Servicer, Oceancrest was on-site within five days of the initial contact and charged with the task of evaluating the individual loans and subsequently stratifying the data in order to position the pool for sale in the secondary market. In another assignment, Oceancrest was retained to complete due diligence on behalf of a major financial institution that was serving as the General Partner in a number of limited partnerships created in the 1970s for the purchase of elderly Section 8 properties throughout the Northeast. The assignment included in-depth research and negotiation with HUD and numerous state housing authorities.
John is an active member in the Wilmington community, serving on the Wilmington International Airport Authority, the Mayor's Convention Center Task Force, and the Cape Fear Council of the Boy Scouts of America Executive Board. He is the Past President of the Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors Commercial Alliance and a former Trustee of the First Baptist Church of Wilmington. He resides in Wilmington with his wife and three children. John is also licensed to conduct real estate transactions in South Carolina.
Ron Rossi is a partner in Oceancrest Advisory Services. He brings an extensive and diverse background spanning over 12 years in the commercial real estate and finance industry with a proven record on both balance sheet-oriented and capital markets-oriented platforms. Currently Ron manages the non-brokerage products and advisory services that his firm offers. Those services include, but are not limited to, consulting on both performing and non-performing investments, asset management, due diligence, valuation analysis, feasibility studies and financial analysis. Ron holds a North Carolina Broker and Broker in Charge license.
Prior to starting up Oceancrest, Ron spent 9 years with Wachovia Securities in their Real Estate Capital Markets Group which was formed in early 1997. Although he has performed many duties while at Wachovia, all of his time at Wachovia was dedicated to 2 business units. Initially, Ron was a Portfolio Manager in the Structured Products Services Group formed to provide master & primary servicing where he managed twelve commercial securitizations and four third party conduit relationship. Ron's portfolio totaled over 1500 loans with a UPB of approximately $8 Billion. Responsibilities included internal & external relationship management, CMSA monthly reporting, review and negotiation of Pooling & Servicing Agreements (PSA's) prior to securitization, as well as being the Single Point of Contact for all Rating Agency, Conduit Lender, Investor and Large Loan Borrower related inquiries.
He spent 4 years as an Asset Manager in the Asset Management & Special Servicing Group. During that time Ron was primarily responsible for asset management of high yield real estate backed Structured Finance positions with a total committed amount of $190MM as well as the Wachovia CREF Variance Pool. Ron's portfolio consisted of assets that Wachovia provided financing for in the form of debt, equity and mezzanine products. The asset types were mainly multifamily, condo and hotels that were either ground up construction or were going through a major renovation to increase cash flow and asset value. Additional responsibilities included portfolio management of the CSFB 2005-CND 1 condo securitization, management of all RECM Fund investments and the workout of two Bank of NY Securitizations that were backed by single tenant Kmart stores.
Ron is an active supporter and volunteer of many youth organizations in the Wilmington community. He serves as leader for a local Cub Scout Pack and coaches baseball and football teams. He resides in Wilmington with his wife and two children.
Susan Keelin is a Senior Vice President of Oceancrest Advisory Services. Her seventeen years of experience in the real estate industry include the practice of law, commercial real estate brokerage, mediation and facilitation services for stakeholders in real estate projects, and management of a multi-million dollar commercial development project.
As an associate and then partner in a prestigious Wilmington law firm, Susan gained vast real estate experience representing clients ranging from builders and developers to business owners and homeowner associations. She has more than a decade of experience representing clients before local and state government agencies and boards, presenting developers with permitting and other land use entitlements, corporate documentation, title issues, and like kind exchanges. She has worked with commercial mortgage brokers, real estate management companies and lender's counsel and has acted as borrower's counsel on numerous transactions. Her experience includes litigation as well as transactional work.
As a real estate broker with a national law firm, Susan has acted as agent for both sellers and buyers in commercial transactions, including land, office, retail and industrial markets. Susan has also acted as broker-in-charge for a real estate company responsible for the asset management functions of the diverse portfolio of a high net-worth individual.
As the managing director of a golf course construction project, Susan consulted regularly with project engineers, architects, builders, appraisers, marketing professionals, and adjacent property owners.
In her capacity as a certified mediator and facilitator, Susan has provided services through the North Carolina Superior Court mandatory mediation program and has facilitated stakeholder meetings for local government agencies and for developers and adjacent property owners.
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Lou Steele brings a wealth of real estate, asset management and workout experience to Oceancrest Advisory Services. Previously, he was one of two founding principals of Prudential CRES Commercial Real Estate in Kansas City, MO for nearly 20 years, during which time he served as a member of the Prudential CRES National Advisory Council and as President of the National Association of Produce Market Managers. The company dedicated itself to providing clients with professional, personalized service of the highest ethical standard in order to establish long-term business relationships and was a leader in investment sales and leasing of office, retail, self storage, multifamily, and industrial properties. The firm was a four time winner of the prestigious Pinnacle Award recognizing the top 10 Prudential affiliates in the US and Canada.
During the fallout from the 1986 Tax Act and the ensuing Savings and Loan crisis, Lou led one of the Midwest's most successful workout teams. He also served as Vice President of the Kansas City Workout Professionals Association. Past workout clients include J.P. Morgan Chase, Lennar, Morgan Stanley, Ford Motor Credit, Central Life Assurance, Bank of America, Equity Office, LaSalle Bank, GMAC, Chrysler Credit and Chemical Bank.
Lou sold his stake in Prudential CRES in 2007 to pursue his interest in providing real estate investment services on a global basis. In the international arena, his focus has been on capital formation from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar to invest in real estate in emerging markets. He has also provided real estate consulting services to investors from the GCC. Lou provides a wide range of real estate services to clients and pursues real estate opportunities, both nationally and globally, through SGCC, LLC, which he formed in 2008. He is also a principal of Wilmot & Steele, a family-owned MO farming corporation.
Lou assumed his responsibilities as Senior Vice President with Oceancrest in January of 2009 after working closely with them on a portfolio of troubled retail centers in and around the Kansas City area. In this capacity, he will be responsible for Oceancrest's Midwest operations as well as the growth of its special servicing and asset management services. Lou is licensed in MO & KS. He has been civically active in Greater Kansas City serving on the Board of Directors of the Downtown Council, River Market Business Association, Urban Core Central Business Transit Planning Team, Old Westport Business Association, and Westport Tomorrow. He resides in Kansas City with his wife and has two adult daughters. He has traveled to over 70 countries.
John Allen is a Senior Vice President of Oceancrest Advisory Services. John has over twenty-five years experience in the real estate industry. He has a strong background in appraisal, project management, development, due diligence, acquisitions and dispositions, consulting, and brokerage services.
Prior to affiliating with Oceancrest, John was a managing partner with Redtail Properties, LLC, a Cary based acquisition and development company. His primary role was contract negotiation, due diligence, and project management, with a focus on strategically located apartment developments. John's most recent project was a 216 unit, $21MM development where he provided contract negotiation, entitlement acquisition, planning, design and pre-development project management.
With his real estate appraisal and consulting background, John has worked extensively with financial institutions, attorneys, developers, corporations, as well as private individuals. He has provided expert witness testimony in numerous court cases in North Carolina and Florida.
John spent two years as a Special Acquisition and Disposition Agent for Progress Energy Carolinas. During this time, he identified Progress Energy's excess land pool and made recommendations for disposition of the unnecessary land. He also identified and contracted land on their behalf for plant expansion in areas throughout North Carolina.
John has previously volunteered his services to many organizations including youth soccer and baseball coaching. He served on the Board of Directors for both the Raleigh Swim Association and Lochmere Swim & Tennis Club, and worked on behalf of the Leadership Cary Chamber. In addition, John participates in Ironman Triathlon races and recently completed Ironman Hawaii.
Lynn DelGaudio has wide-ranging real estate consulting experience serving corporations, financial institutions, individual investors, pension funds, developers and public entities. Her background includes expertise in real estate valuation, investment analysis, market research, strategic planning, acquisition/disposition due diligence, capital budgeting, residential sale & marketing, and feasibility analysis. Lynn has been in the real estate industry for 16 years, and she has worked extensively throughout the U.S. and Mexico.
Before joining Oceancrest Advisory Services, Lynn provided appraisal services in upstate New York, relative to a broad variety of property types, including: hotel/resort, industrial, office, residential, cell tower, railroad, museum and retail.
As a Consulting Manager for Ernst & Young, Lynn provided advisory services throughout the U.S. and Mexico, and headed the Hospitality Services Group for the San Francisco office. In Mexico City, she worked with a number of the country's largest financial institutions, performing due diligence and valuation services for portfolios ranging from 80 to 400 assets. Among her assignments was a complex financial feasibility relative to the proposed expansion and renovation of Mexico City's largest metro station. This project contemplated the reconfiguration of parking and ancillary public facilities, reorganization and addition of retail space, redesign and expansion of metro tracking systems, development of a multi-plex theatre, a high-rise office building, parking structure, hotel and PEMEX gas station. This analysis required the development of financial models in Spanish and English, including conversion from the U.S. dollar to the Mexican peso at forecasted Mexican exchange and inflation rates. Ms. DelGaudio became an expert in the Mexican resort market, performing numerous consulting assignments for U.S. investors throughout the country. In addition to her consulting experience, Ms. DelGaudio spent two years at Stanford University, where she assisted in the development and management of the University's $2.1 billion, multi-year capital plan, managed a $10 million facilities reserve budget, and developed a multi-year debt forecast for a $1.6 billion construction plan. In addition, Lynn oversaw the development, implementation and training of an electronic-based management system for funding processes.
Lynn's background also includes various aspects of the sale and marketing of high-end condominium properties in New England, from product inception and feasibility, through to development, topping out and management of productive assets. Lynn holds a Bachelors degree in Accounting with distinction from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is fluent in Spanish.
Paul S. Loukas is involved with asset management services where he has worked on each phase of a facility's life cycle of both equity and debt from single-assets to portfolios. Of note, he recently served on an acquisition team for a $600MM 3-pool HUD portfolio sale, and assisted on the disposition of a $180MM franchisee portfolio. Mr. Loukas has also organized and prepared the due diligence of numerous properties around the country, ranging from regional shopping centers to section-8 multi-family sites. He has performed valuations of both limited and general partnership interests for the entities controlling the aforementioned real estate. Typically dealing with distressed and underperforming assets, much of Mr. Loukas' work originates from structured finance, where deals may include the placement of equity, debt, or include joint ventures in transactions that can not warrant permanent or conventional financing.
Along with the advisory services, Mr. Loukas conducts third-party real estate brokerage with Prudential CRES, where he co-heads the Investment Services Group. He focuses on the brokerage of income producing assets in the Mid-Atlantic region. He has worked on hospitality, industrial, multi-family, self-storage, senior-care, retail, and triple-net products. In the last two years, he has consummated over twenty transactions ranging from less than $500,000 to $6MM.
Most recently he was part of a team that prepared Property Valuation & Market Analysis Reports on 32 assets, of a 68 asset portfolio, for a leading worldwide chemical distributor. This assignment was completed in less than a two-week period.
Teresa Huffmon joined Prudential CRES of Wilmington as a Commercial Broker in December 2005, after 4 years of developing a real estate portfolio. She brings over 20 years of experience in the medical field to include medical consulting, practice development and practice management.
Teresa received a bachelor's degree in Occupational Therapy in 1992. She has worked in multiple settings to include hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living, long term care, and out-patient orthopedic clinics. During that time she was involved in the evaluation of work environments, recommendations and the implementation for ergonomically and ADA compliant work environments, and played a key role with her recommendations in the prevention of work related injuries for companies at high risk for employee injury claims.
Teresa has refined her background and knowledge of space assessment, and carried it over into the commercial real estate arena. She has been involved in multiple project site developments starting from vacant lots and demolition followed by continuous involvement in the design phase, construction process, schedule verifications, supply delivery checks, and upfits.
Teresa is focused on the financial bottom line of any project, and has developed skills in dealing with bids, negotiations, and prioritizing of overall development tasks.
Geoffrey A. King joined Oceancrest Advisory Services as an Analyst in May 2008. In his current role, Geoff assists in providing third party analysis for large financial institution's Real Estate Capital Markets and Asset Management groups on a variety of local and national properties ranging from commercial to multifamily sites. He has been personally responsible for monthly asset management support on numerous debt and equity placement deals, covering all major asset classes. On all of his deals, Geoff provides customized research information on the real estate backed investment, taking into account historic information, current market conditions and forecasts that impact the performance of a given property.
Geoff also specializes in both on and off-site loan evaluations and due diligence. He has recently worked on a number of assignments that primarily consist of evaluating the underlying loan assets of a troubled bank's outstanding positions. The underwriting teams look to value the loans aggregately from the perspective of an investor in the secondary market. Geoff fills a variety of roles on many of Oceancrest's due diligence assignments, and recently worked on a team that provided due diligence for a regional community bank on one of their largest real estate loans from the foreclosure through the disposition of the asset. An evolving responsibility for Geoff has been developing new business for the company, which has included establishing new relationships and participating in industry conferences and events.
A native North Carolinian, Geoff earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and currently holds his North Carolina Real Estate Broker's License. He has participated in a variety of volunteer activities in the community as an active member of the Surfrider Foundation's Cape Fear Chapter, the Cape Fear Green Building Alliance, and as a former student-member of UNCW's Financial Management Association (FMA). Before joining with Oceancrest, Geoff travelled extensively throughout the U.S., Europe, Africa, Indonesia, and Central America in 2002 and 2006. He currently resides in Wilmington.
Anthony S. Allen has assisted in analyzing numerous property types for a multitude of clients, ranging from individual private investors to large financial institutions. His broad-based knowledge of the real estate industry, combined with his analytical and goal-directed skills, add significant value to our clients.
He has provided ongoing CDO support, underwriting, asset management and due diligence work for a large financial institution's Real Estate Capital Markets Group, on both debt and equity investments, covering all major asset classes. This work involves review of all legal files, loan documents, servicing files and third party reports, as well as, underwriting the underlying collateral securing these loans to account for any deterioration in loan performance in these current distressed market conditions.
Anthony was part of a team that provided on site due diligence and lease analysis of a thirteen asset portfolio, for a publicly traded student housing REIT valued at $244.3MM. Additionally, he provided on-going, value-add, investment management for an equity portfolio of 25 investments and 37 assets throughout the country, entailing various property types.
Anthony received an undergraduate degree in Finance from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he was inducted into the Cameron Executive Network. As well, he is a licensed North Carolina Real Estate Broker.
Angela Tarascio joined Oceancrest Advisory Services as a Financial Analyst Intern in April 2009. With her detail and goal-oriented skills, she assists with due diligence, underwriting, asset management, monthly financial analysis, and market research. In addition, she assists in the creation of innovative marketing strategies and materials for all of Oceancrest's comprehensive business lines, enhancing new business development for all of our clients commercial real estate needs.
A native to Georgia, Angela came to North Carolina to make Wilmington her home in 2002. Currently she is attending the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she is pursuing both a Bachelors of Science in Finance as well as Entrepreneurship and Business Development. In addition, as a Studio Art minor, Angela is providing creative insight for the advertising and marketing production.
During her course of studies, her interests in international business and economics blossomed, which led to a summer study abroad in Germany where she attended one of the top business schools. Personal involvements on campus include the Entrepreneur's Roundtable, Intervarsity, and the University Advertising Chapter. Her studies have focused on real estate, financial analysis, management, marketing, business law, entrepreneurship, and business development.