Cosenza: Still Standing, 3,300 Deals Later

OAK BROOK, IL—He was one of four friends to help start the Inland Group back in 1967 and, $38 billion in property transactions later, tells GlobeSt.com that he is “still standing.” But to Joe Cosenza, now vice chairman and head of acquisitions for the Oak Brook, IL-based company, what’s more important when it comes to understanding his career is the number of individual deals that he has helped execute. The roughly 3,300 purchases are “probably significantly more than any other company,” many of which have grown over the years by swallowing whole firms and portfolios at once. “It’s the individual deal that takes the most amount of stamina. It certainly hones your negotiating skills.”  

Although the art of making a deal has not changed in any essential way over these decades, Cosenza says dealmakers need to be alert to when and how the business landscape shifts. When the great recession hit commercial real estate in 2009, for example, he decided that it was not the time to hunker down. In fact, Inland companies were among the most active retail buyers that year, regardless of the many vacancies created by the bankruptcies of Circuit City, Linens ‘N Things and Mervyn’s.