Stiles Capital Group Sets Billion-Dollar Goal in Florida

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL-Stiles Capital Group, a division of locally based Stiles Corp., has created a new position to help obtain a new billion-dollar goal over the next five years.The goal, a new concept for Stiles Capital Group, is “to acquire or assemble a billion dollars worth of real estate in the next five years,” says Rocco Ferrera, president of Stiles Capital Group. The goal begins with 2004. To assist with that goal, the company has hired Marc Kopelman as investment equity director. In that position, he is responsible for coordinating the capitalization of Stiles investment services and acquisition activities.According to the company, the addition of Kopelman reflects its “aggressive investment strategy,” which consists of acquiring $150 million in real estate in South Florida, Tampa and Orlando this year. “Our objective is to cover the entire state of Florida” in the major metropolitan areas, Ferrera says.Prior to Kopelman’s joining Stiles Capital Group, one person–Mark Corlew, director of acquisitions for the company–coordinating its acquisitions. Having just one person made it “very difficult to keep a steady pipeline of acquisitions coming in,” Ferrera says. “We felt very strongly that we needed support” to achieve this.Before he joined Stiles Capital Group, Kopelman was a general partner with Zenith Realty Investments, a regional real estate investment firm in Fort Lauderdale. His duties there included developing the programmatic portfolio real estate investment concept underlying the firm. He helped build Zenith’s portfolio of commercial properties from inception to nearly one million sf in South Florida and negotiated more than $100 million in debt financing instruments ranging from development and construction loans to corporate revolving credit lines secured by partnership interests.Kopelman, a certified public accountant in Florida, has close to 20 years experience in real estate and accounting in South Florida, also previously working with such companies as Brenner Real Estate Group and Ernst & Young/Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group, and Kenneth Leventhal & Co. CPAs.