Drawbridge Bolsters Ranks with Two Female Hires
The experience and skills that Will and Baltus bring to Drawbridge will be valuable in helping the firm seek out, acquire and manage desirable investment properties throughout the United States.
SAN FRANCISCO—Local firm Drawbridge Realty has hired Wendy Will as the company’s new senior advisor of capital markets and Jennifer Baltus as director of property management. Will is based in Drawbridge’s San Francisco headquarters where she will oversee expanding the firm’s equity capitalization and portfolio debt financings.
“The experience and skills that Jennifer and Wendy bring to Drawbridge will be valuable in helping us to seek out, acquire and manage worthwhile investment properties throughout the US,” Mark Whiting, CEO of Drawbridge, tells GlobeSt.com.
Baltus is based in Drawbridge’s Denver market, where she is responsible for the oversight of property management operations. Drawbridge’s portfolio totals more than 5 million square feet across 11 major US markets including more than 590,000 square feet in the greater Bay Area.
“Drawbridge completed over $400 million in new investments during 2019, increasing our portfolio to 49 properties and $1.4 billion in total capitalization,” says Whiting.
Prior to joining Drawbridge, Will spent 14 years at Digital Realty Trust as the chief financial officer of EMEA in London as well as the senior vice president of capital markets in San Francisco. Prior to Digital Realty, Will was a director of corporate finance at Prudential Capital Group as well as a senior auditor and system consultant at Price Waterhouse. She is also a Certified Public Accountant in California.
Baltus comes to Drawbridge with more than 25 years of real estate experience managing the financial and operational success of commercial property assets, including asset repositioning and capital improvements. Prior to joining Drawbridge, she was a senior vice president at JLL, responsible for property management operations of more than 3 million square feet in San Diego and Orange County.
Global acquisitions of commercial property dipped in the third quarter of 2019, with Europe and Asia Pacific leading the decline, according to Real Capital Analytics’ latest edition of Global Capital Trends. US activity, which represents about one half of the global market for income-producing real estate, also weakened.
For the first nine months of last year, global trading of commercial property excluding land fell 7% from 2018. Among the world’s major country markets, there were only a handful that posted an increase on 2018 levels, notably France and Singapore, which have both benefited from cross-border investor interest.