A fair number of the REITs that have stumbled in attempting to sell shares have been blind pools. “Investors just don’t see the value proposition right now in funding those vehicles, particularly when you have the established, seeded REITs with a meaningful ability to raise capital and take advantage of those same opportunities,” Lazarus says.

By contrast, Los Angeles-based Hudson Pacific came to the IPO market with a ready-made portfolio of assets, including six office properties in Northern and Southern California and a pair of media and entertainment properties, Sunset Gower Studios and Sunset Bronson Studios, both in Hollywood. The REIT’s West Coast focus “certainly played a role” in the IPO’s success, Lazarus says. “For some time now, people have felt more comfortable investing in the two coasts.”

Also, says Lazarus, Hudson’s management team, including CEO Victor Coleman and president Howard Stern, both formerly of Arden Realty, were proven public-company executives. “That changes the whole level of the conversation when you sit down to have a meeting” with potential investors.

Another plus was the team’s ability to craft a winning story. “One of the things the banks were very concerned about was the media and entertainment exposure” in the Hudson Pacific portfolio, Lazarus says. “Why were they concerned? Very simply, because it hadn’t yet been sold in the public markets. Bankers generally look to precedent, for good reason. But what we had imagined when I began working with Victor over a year ago was that we could sell these assets in the public market and the market would accept them.”

Contrary to what some observers may have expected, “the media assets became a feature of the deal rather than something investors might have had to work through,” says Lazarus. Owning a pair of Hollywood studios totaling 900,000 square feet helped position Hudson Pacific as unique. “We were able to spin it into a positive.”

Given the volatility in the market, the timing on the IPO was “tough,” Lazarus acknowledges. Part of the challenge was determining when do we go amid all of the time pressures you’re under in trying to structure these things to begin with. That is all stuff you accomplish through experience, feel and conviction about telling your story. And with three book-runners on the deal”—in this case, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley—“it’s often very hard to get a uniform opinion. Eventually they all agree, but getting there is challenging.”

Yet the three underwriters were eventually won over. Often, multiple underwriters will gravitate “toward the lowest common denominator,” Lazarus says. “If Bank A says it will only go out at $16 and Banks B and C are at $17, if you want Bank A to come along you’d better go out at $16.” Instead, the Hudson Pacific executives took the position that the deal would proceed on their terms. “What the deal ultimately came down to was their conviction in saying, ‘we’re going to tell this story on the road and be able to sell this deal at this valuation,’” Lazarus says.