Ranieri Real Estate Partners Announces Executive Appointments

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Eric Schwartz Joins as President and Founding Partner; Imran Ahmed Joins as Founding Partner

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Ranieri Real Estate Partners today announced that Eric Schwartz has joined the firm as president and founding partner, and Imran Ahmed has joined as founding partner, Advisory, effective immediately. As president, Mr. Schwartz will oversee all aspects of the commercial real estate merchant bank, and Mr. Ahmed will lead the firm’s build out of its advisory and investment management businesses. The addition of Messrs. Schwartz and Ahmed continue to augment the real estate platform at Ranieri Real Estate Partners, as they join co-founder and CEO Jon Vaccaro.

Ranieri Real Estate Partners (“RREP”) is a commercial real estate merchant bank that provides global advisory, investment management and capital market solutions to participants throughout the commercial real estate spectrum. The firm is dedicated to serving as a valuable partner in all phases of real estate ownership, including distressed situations, and works with entities including owner/operators, financial institutions, the FDIC, and Government Sponsored Entities. The RREP team brings deep real estate industry expertise and leverages the intellectual capital of the broader Ranieri platform.

“We are very pleased to have executives of this caliber join the Ranieri Real Estate Partners team,” said Mr. Vaccaro. “I have worked with both Eric and Imran for more than 10 years and they each offer impressive credentials. Eric brings deep global experience, and he is a proven leader in developing and implementing real estate lending innovations and structures. He also has significant expertise in bankruptcy and restructuring of complex debt and equity positions. Imran is also a globally seasoned real estate professional, having established major real estate operations in the Middle East and South Asia. He has deep experience in principal investments, M&A, equity and debt capital markets, structured finance and corporate advisory.

“This is a tumultuous time in commercial real estate and much of the distress has yet to rise to the surface. However, with our experience, we are well-positioned to work with a broad array of owners as they navigate complex situations and seek solutions as to how best to move forward,” Vaccaro concluded.

From 1999 to 2009, Mr. Schwartz was U.S. co-head of Deutsche Bank Commercial Real Estate (“DBCRE”), where he was a senior member of the team that led the bank’s build out of the U.S. and international commercial real estate platforms to $40 billion in assets, operations in eight countries, a number of platforms including a significant GSE multifamily lending and servicing business, and 550 members. During Mr. Schwartz’s tenure, the DBCRE business was consistently one of the top originators and structurers of real estate related debt world-wide, and he was at the forefront of a number real estate lending innovations and structures including the establishment of the first large scale B-Note lending program. From 1995-1997, Mr. Schwartz was a senior analyst/vice president of Moody’s Investors Service as part of a core team that rated Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS). From 1988-1995 Mr. Schwartz was an attorney at both Proskauer Rose LLP and then at Robinson Silverman (now known as Bryan Cave LLP). Mr. Schwartz received his B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College and his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. He has also held a number of securities licenses including Series 7, 63 and 24.

Prior to joining RREP, Mr. Ahmed was a managing director at DBCRE in New York, where he worked on a wide range of real estate related projects. Mr. Ahmed has been involved with over $100 billion of transaction activity, and he has extensive experience in principal investments, M&A, equity and debt capital markets, structured finance and corporate advisory. Most recently, he was focused on creating a distressed debt investment platform at DBCRE, leveraging third-party co-investment capital, including infrastructure development and capital raising. During 2006 – 2007, Mr. Ahmed was responsible for DBCRE’s entry into the Middle East and South Asia, which led to the opening of its office in Mumbai. In 2003 Mr. Ahmed co-founded Arch Street Capital Advisors, LLC, which advised and invested in U.S. real property on behalf of Middle East institutional clients, acquiring and managing close to $1.0 billion of multifamily, industrial and office properties. Mr. Ahmed earned B.S. and B.Arch. degrees from Cornell University, a S.M. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a MBA from Harvard Business School.