NEW YORK CITY-Jerry Swartz, a 40-year industry veteran, has formed HKS Capital Partners, a real estate capital advisory firm that will focus on debt and equity finance. His partners and co-founders in the venture are Ayush Kapahi and Jonathan Harrington, both of whom were hired by Swartz at Pergolis & Swartz.

“I started with Sonnenblick-Goldman in 1970, so it’s been about 41 years,” Swartz tells GlobeSt.com. “I spent 35 of those years with my partner Pergolis and it had kind of reached a point in that firm where I had started to spend a lot of time doing transactions with some of the younger people in the firm that I had brought in and I just decided that it seemed to make more sense--that they were interested in doing this and starting a new venture.”

Swartz says that the venture started in earnest in March, quickly taking off leading up to a successful launch in April. “We were able to secure space with clients of mine who are real estate lenders--Aristone Realty Capital--so that worked out great because that gives us an in-house lending position to market to our clients,” he says, “which is great for anyone in the mortgage business.” Aristone is a direct lender, specializing in real estate financing and is led by Todd Lippiatt and Patrick McGrath.

Looking forward, Swartz sees things opening up--with plenty of opportunities for work to flow into HKS, through Wall Street CMBS. “The market has become quite active,” he says. “Wall Street, through their CMBS programs, has become extremely active in the last 6 to 8 months so we’re seeing a lot of that kind of debt. Obviously the banks are flush with dollars and rates are low, so for acquisition financing and refinacing of existing debt the market is very active.”

Swartz says that at the previous firm, he and his new partners were doing brisk agency business, “meaning Fannie and Freddie,” based largely in residential. “Obviously, on the top of the food chain is residential,” he says. “That has somewhat outpriced itself. Banks are now much more competitive so the thrift industry is great right now for residential.”