Former Ares Management Partner Launches Asland Capital Partners

NEW YORK CITY – James  Simmons, a 20-year veteran of private equity real estate investment, has launched private real estate investment firm Asland Capital Partners, specializing in multifamily, mixed-use and retail investments. StepStone Group Real Estate, a firm that focuses on GP-led secondaries including recapitalizations, catalyzed Asland’s launch through a concurrent recapitalization. 

The closing funded Asland’s recapitalization and acquisition of two assets, including Heritage at Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia and Park Lane Apartments in New York City, that are reflective of Asland’s goal of creating and preserving best-in-class middle-income housing in national emerging submarkets. 

Asland’s investment thesis focuses on acquiring cash-flowing residential and mixed-use assets below replacement cost in underinvested submarkets that are rapidly improving due to a resurgence in urbanization and the resulting increased demand for rental homes throughout the U.S.

The firm is a natural next step for Simmons, formerly a Partner at Ares Management, offering institutional investors risk-adjusted returns through the acquisition and improvement of properties that are poised to benefit from favorable demographic trends.

“There is a nationwide shortage of high-quality housing that is affordable to middle-income renters.  We seek to preserve and develop workforce housing in emerging urban submarkets that are experiencing an influx of new residents,” Simmons said in a prepared statement. “Asland’s focus will be on providing a product that serves the rise in urban population growth, in markets across the U.S. where we have extensive experience, connectivity, local knowledge and have invested successfully in the past. We will leverage deep community-based relationships with owners, brokers and local domiciles to provide proprietary access to the best investment opportunities in these key urban submarkets.”