Rockpoint Group Adds Principal in Japan

TOKYO-Rockpoint Group LLC, the San Francisco-based private real estate investment and asset manager founded last fall by Westbrook Partners co-founder Bill Walton, is beefing up its acquisitions team. Hisashi Furukawa, most recently a real estate executive with UBS Securities Japan, will join the firm at the start of May as a principal and member of the firm’s investment committee.Furukawa, 45, will be based in the firm’s Tokyo office and will work jointly with Brian Borg, Rockpoint’s other Tokyo-based principal. The duo will concentrate on the further expansion of the firm’s real estate investment program in Japan, which includes the acquisition of hard assets, either from distressed owners or with a value creation component, as well as investments in opportunities such as non-performing loans and corporate spin-offs of real estate subsidiaries.Rockpoint Group was founded in 2003 by five of the six managing members of Westbrook Real Estate Partners. The firm manages Rockpoint Real Estate SpecialFund LP and Rockpoint Real Estate Fund I LP. The funds have an expected $900 million in capital commitments ($650 million closed to date). The firm’s investment strategytargets a mix of primarily domestic investments in moderately distressed real estate assets in the eastern and western U.S. and foreign investments in selective opportunities in Europe and Asia. Rockpoint has offices in Boston, Dallas, San Francisco and Tokyo.Furukawa, who will be making a personal investment in Rockpoint Fund I, brings more than 20 years of real estate and finance experience to the firm. For four years prior to joining Rockpoint, Furukawa was co-head of UBS Securities Real Estate Sector Team. Prior to that, from 1990 until 2000, Furukawa worked in Tokyo for Morgan Stanley Realty and the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund (MSREF). Furukawa joined Morgan Stanley as an Associate, was promoted to vice president in 1993 and to executive director in 1998. Rockpoint Group founding partner Greg Hartman, managing member responsible for its Japan investment program, says Hisashi’s relationships throughout the lending, real estate and corporate communities in Japan “will greatly complement our existing relationships.”