GE's Darren Kowalske

Darren Kowalske started his career with GE 24 years ago, with his first job in the company’s real estate sale-leaseback group. He spent a good part of his early career in the real estate division, both domestically and overseas, and more recently was stationed in Europe, growing the company’s healthcare financial services business. However, earlier this year he returned to the US to head Scottsdale, AZ-based GE Capital, Franchise Finance as president and CEO. Real Estate Media’s online newsletter, NET LEASE forum spoke with Kowalske about the company’s acquisition of the former Trustreet Properties Inc. and his outlook for future business. This story has been edited for length. Please go to Net Lease forum for the full text.

NLf: Let’s talk about the Trustreet acquisition. What were the motivations and strategy behind it?

Kowalske: We’re always looking for good opportunities to complement our growth. Trustreet was a good company. We like the product the firm was doing, the sale-leaseback; obviously the industry they were in, primarily restaurant; and the quality of their platform. And that goes a lot to the integration–we didn’t acquire it just to get the assets. We were buying the people and the capabilities they provided, and, for the most part, we’ve kept that team intact in Orlando. Orlando has become our sale-leaseback center for all of our Franchise Finance business.