PHOENIX—As previously reported on GlobeSt.com, Alliance Residential has promoted Bob Weston to chief financial officer. Weston, currently managing director for production in the Southeast, will relocate to Phoenix to take on the role of chief financial officer, playing a key role in managing and growing Alliance's capital relationships. He has experience running multifamily development and, coupled with his prior banking experience, understands the complexities of structuring, negotiating, documenting and executing multifamily real estate transactions.
GlobeSt.com: What are your strategies for managing and growing capital relationships?
Weston: We are fortunate in that we have worked with best-in-class investors and lenders for years. These groups have supported us in markets across the country and during different phases of the development cycle, and we pride ourselves on the returns that we have been able to deliver over time. Moving forward in this increasingly competitive environment, it's important for Alliance to continue to envision and consistently execute development of unique communities that provide exceptional returns for our partners. Doing so will ensure we continue to attract capital from partners with whom we have worked for years.
That said, there has been a strong inflow of capital into our industry, and some of these sources are new to particular markets or to multifamily in general. As we look to the future, it will be critical for us to build relationships with these new groups and ensure they understand the benefit of partnering with a proven operator like Alliance.
We also recognize our partners and lenders look at a multitude of opportunities across the real estate spectrum. We always want to understand their strategies for deploying capital in the multifamily space, to ensure we present opportunities that align with their strategic goals—thus, it's critical that we communicate with them regularly. To demonstrate our commitment to understanding various strategies and building relationships, we have created a team of regional financial officers across the country. Their local expertise and extensive finance experience ensures that we can deliver the best service and present targeted investment opportunities to our capital partners.
GlobeSt.com: What are some of the more complex components of executing multifamily transactions?
Weston: At the most fundamental level, it's all about creating unique communities that serve the local markets in which we operate. In order to do that, we must build and maintain truly local operational capabilities—we pride ourselves on the quality of our local teams and their expertise regarding their unique market. Each local market has its own set of risks, and we rely upon our local partners to evaluate and mitigate these risks very carefully. This can lead to varied deal structures across our footprint, so one of our challenges is to ensure that those structures work within our defined risk tolerances. For example, we may be willing to take risks in certain markets that would be avoided in others. Fortunately, we have a strong team in place to structure around those risks.
GlobeSt.com: How has your experience thus far prepared you for your new role?
Weston: Coming from the development side of our business, I understand the challenges of executing at the ground level. Additionally, my experience at Alliance has allowed me to get to know not only our local development teams, but also most of our existing capital partners. These relationships will greatly help me hit the ground running and get up to speed quickly on new responsibilities. Prior to managing the Southeast division at Alliance, I spent a good portion of my career in the real estate group for a bank, working in roles related to loan production and special assets. That experience helped shape how I view our business and our company, and will allow me to bring new ideas to my role with the ultimate goal of continuing to improve how we structure our development projects.
GlobeSt.com: Any additional comments you think would be of interest to our readers?
Weston: First and foremost, we have an exceptional leadership team in place—they have done an incredible job building our business. I'm thankful for the path that our leaders have set us upon and recognize that our success is due to their vision and execution over the past 15 years. I'm excited about the opportunities we are identifying as a company and look forward to doing my part to help our team execute on goals.
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