NEW YORK CITY—For most executives—no matter how talented they are—being asked to come in at the eleventh hour and save a company that just went through a host of scandals likely would be an order too tall to surmount. But for Glenn Rufrano—best known as the former CEO of Cushman & Wakefield and most recently the CEO and chairman of O'Connor Capital Partners—the enormous challenge of becoming CEO of American Realty Capital Properties sounded like an exciting, and fairly familiar, opportunity.
“It makes life interesting to work in a place you feel you can make a difference,” he told ALM-Real Estate Media Group VP and group publisher Michael Desiato during the “Inside the Real Estate Mind” session at RealShare Net Lease late last week. “I've dealt with similar situations and I managed them—and I managed well.”
ALM is the parent company of GlobeSt.com. During the interview, he also sounded off on the state of the market.
While serving as CEO of Centro Properties Group from 2007 to 2008, Rufrano had to sort through the aftermath of the firm misstating its long-term liabilities as short-term obligations and previously as CEO of New Plan Excel Realty Trust, “we had a similar situation and I took the stock from $11 to $33.”
To turn beleaguered companies around, Rufrano's strategy starts with getting back to basics. “First, what is ARCP?” he asked both himself and the employees. Ultimately, he declared, “We're a real estate operating company with an investment management arm.”
From there, he told Desiato, it was imperative for him to define the company's culture. “When you're going through tough times, there always will be leadership and morale issues; you need to get out in front of it. I've done town halls with nearly everyone, we've gotten input for the company's mission statement and defined our culture which is extremely important.”
Meanwhile, Rufrano also knows that his keen understanding of the market is vital for the company to move ahead. "I think the current cycle is still playing out. Right now, there's liquidity in the market and we don't have oversupply. On the cost-of-capital side of the balance sheet, we're in the seventh or eight inning. But on the revenue side, we're only in maybe the fourth or fifth inning."
The head of ARCP only since April 1st, Rufrano made clear that, ultimately, he needs to boost the market's perception of ARCP. “The companies under the ARCP banner are good companies that had nothing to do with what was happening at that top level. But when a company has had some noise around it, how do you rebuild confidence in the brand? You start from the top because if someone reliable isn't representing the firm, nothing else matters.”
From there, he noted, it's all about execution. “You have to prove that you're a good real estate operating company with good governance. After that, it's not what I say, its what I do.”
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
