Bio
Bill Janes is the General Managing Partner of Iron Point Partners, LLC and has senior responsibility for overall fund management as well as for sourcing and managing investments. Iron Point was founded in 2007 to pursue opportunistic, theme-based real estate private equity investments throughout North America and currently has more than $4.2 billion of assets under management. Prior to Iron Point’s formation, the principals managed RMB Realty, Inc. and its successor Oak Hill Realty, LLC, the real estate investment vehicles for Robert M. Bass. Additionally, Bill was involved in the formation of IPI Partners, LLC, a joint venture between Iron Point Partners and ICONIQ Capital focused on real estate investments in data centers and other technology and connectivity-related real assets. He also sits on the Investment Committee of the Firm’s funds.
Bill Janes became involved with the Bass Entities in 1990 and has played a significant role in the major real estate transactions for the Bass Entities, including the acquisition of the Helmsley Building in New York City, and the acquisition, financing, and disposition of the other major assets in New York City. He was also active in the 1998 acquisition of interests in numerous Japanese properties through DaVinci I Corp. Y.K. In 1997, Bill was a member of the board of directors of Mendik and was instrumental in the consolidation of Mendik’s real estate holdings and the subsequent $654 million acquisition of such holdings by Vornado. He was also actively involved in the initial public offerings of CarrAmerica and Paragon. While serving on the board of directors of Paragon, he was also involved in its merger with Camden Property Trust, a public real estate investment trust.
Prior to becoming involved with the Bass Entities, Bill Janes was with Lincoln Property Company, serving as General Partner and overseeing development operations in the mid-Atlantic region, and with Coldwell Banker (now CB Richard Ellis). He has been a member of the board of directors or investment committees of AHM-Williston, American Skiing Company, Brazos Asset Management, Inc., Brazos Fund, CapStar Hotel Company, Carr Real Estate Services, Inc., First Atlantic Holdings, L.L.C, GMH Southpointe, IPI Data Center Partners Fund I and II, Max/FW Management, L.L.C., Mendik Corporation, MeriStar Hospitality Corporation, Net Lease, Oak Hill REIT Management, Paragon, Power Loft, L.L.C., S&B Williston, SRHI, Stream-Houston, Stream-Minneapolis, Stream-San Antonio, T5 @ Dallas II, T5 @ New York, T5 @ Portland, T5 Portfolio I and Titan. Additionally, he was involved with the IPO of GMH Communities Trust and the merger of the Codina Group, Inc. (“Codina”) and Florida East Coast Industries.
Raised in Massachusetts, Bill Janes has a B.A. in Government from Bowdoin College and was a member of the Bowdoin College Board of Trustees for fifteen years. He maintains professional affiliations as a member of the Urban Land Institute and the Real Estate Roundtable and has been associated with the Washington National Cathedral and is a supporter of Vail Veterans Program, the Marine Raider Foundation (MARSOC) and the Third Option Foundation.
Show Notes
Current Role
- Iron Point Partners– Managing Partner (3:40)
- Tom Lynch (Co Managing Partner)
- Oversee fund raising and source deals for investment
- Iron Point Fund #4
- Greenfield-Data Centers
- Assisted Living
- Opportunistic real estate
- Graduate student housing- Multifamily with more studios
- Self Storage and Industrial
Origin Story
- Bill Janes grew up in Lincoln, MA (7:50)
- Oldest of 5
- Dad- From New York, NY
- Cornell and was part of the Manhattan Project
- Went to MIT as a nuclear physicist
- DARPA– Developed patent for LASERs for separating isotopes
- Mom- Librarian
- Never took one physics class (11:30)
- Dad was big influence in sports (12:10)
- Canoeing
- Rock Climbing
- Rather do team sports, but his Dad wanted to do individual challenging efforts (13:15)
- Played soccer and lacrosse
- Bowdoin College (14:10)
- Spent summers in Maine
- Degree in Government
- Soccer & Lacrosse
- Worked for Bill Cohen (Senator) (15:00)
- Came to DC with him
- Worked there two weeks and quit
- Bowdoin alum- Merrill Lynch office leader suggested he go down the hall and interview with Coldwell Banker in 1977 (15:50)
Career Arc
- Interviewed with Jim O’Brien (leader of Coldwell Banker Office) (16:30)
- Jim had played hockey at Harvard (17:30)
- Took the Coldwell Banker “Nut” Test- Basic test and passed (18:00)
- Made him an offer to be a broker (18:35)
- George Voris, Steve Spencer, Hal Boles, Dick Kramer, Jeff Green, Bill Curtis
- No roles- “Eat what you kill” (19:20)
- Did industrial deals in PG County- Cabot Cabot & Forbes (Gerry Blakeley) (20:00)
- CC&F wanted to do Downtown Office deal in DC
- 12th & Penn, NW (21:35)
- Bill Curtis (Mont. County)
- Ken McVearry- Instilled more discipline than anyone else (22:00)
- “Plan your work and work your plan”
- Ray Ritchey joined CB right after Bill joined (23:50)
- List of fellow CB people- John Kyle, Vernon Knarr, John McEvilly, Chip Ryan, Tom Cafferty, Marie Karl, Jillian Finkelstein
- 1977-84 at Coldwell Banker
- Bill Janes joined Lincoln Property in 1984 (25:00)
- Lincoln formed in the late 1960s after Mack Pogue separated from Trammell Crow on “Lincoln’s Birthday” (25:35)
- Joined as Partner with Bill Duvall (26:30)
- Emulated Ray Ritchey (26:50)
- Jeff Franzen was Multifamily Partner (28:50)
- Bill’s focus was commercial
- First deals- Bought sites from MCI to build two towers in Pentagon City, VA (30:00)
- Another deal in Rosslyn, VA
- Milk Producer’s Site
- Australian Equity partner
- Industrial in Harford County, MD
- First Hires- John Grissom, Bruce McNair and Bill Hickey (34:00)
- Bill Hickey took over the office when Bill left LPC
- “Hit the ball over the net!” (35:20)
- Advised by Jim Pastoriza a venture capitalist- “Own it”
- Couldn’t pass up opportunity (38:50)
- Gerry Kostelny and Gary Kachadurian
- Tom Delatour was CFO at LPC and left to go to the Bass Group in 1988 (39:50)
- Decision to leave LPC- Market conditions in late 1980s deteriorating (41:10)
- Learned how to prepare a proforma at Lincoln (42:15)
- LPC set up to provide the ancillary services for the local partner (42:40)
- All the disciplines in place
- Bill would find the site and bring the local market data to make it happen
- Looking for market knowledge to find tenants
- Referred to Ray Ritchey’s experience in leasing (44:50)
- Bill brought IBM to Democracy Center for Boston Properties (45:20)
- Large block of space
- Tenant Rep brokers- Studley was the major player doing it (46:30)
- CB was the “wild west” (47:50)
- Bill McAdam of CB went around table to find out what their concentration was and there was no allocation (48:15)
- They were making money
- Robert M. Bass Group (50:15)
- Tom Delatour advised him about the distress that was coming (50:40)
- Hired Bill and John Grayken
- Early 1990s was very active in RTC investments (51:00)
- David Bonderman
- Jay Crandall (Bowdoin classmate)
- Dan Doctoroff (Sidewalk Labs)
- Steve Gruber
- Glen August
- New spectrum for him to be surrounded by brainpower in private equity (53:30)
- Invest in real estate companies
- Bought $5B of RTC properties (53:50)
- John Grayken left to form Lone Star Funds
- Bought office, hotels, land…all products (54:30)
- Tom Delatour and Bill started REIT IPO market (54:50)
- Money behind CarrAmerica REIT IPO- 1993 (55:10)
- UPREIT model- Merrill Lynch & Lehman Bros.
- Paragon in Texas
- Bob Branson- Umbrella LP (UPREIT) (56:35)
- Chuck Carlock- Tax expert at Bass (57:20)
- Capstar Hotel Company- Paul Whetsell (57:50)
- Mendik Properties– JV with him to go public in 1995 and merged into Vornado (58:50)
- Mike Fascitelli led Vornado
- Resorts International (1:00:00)
- Formed company in Japan to buy 22 office buildings in Tokyo (1:00:40)
- Formed JV in NYC to buy $6B of buildings- B Buildings in A locations- 230 Park, 237 Park in 1998 (1:01:20)
- Bill was a partner with Tom Delatour in the Real Estate team (1:03:00)
- Investing his own capital
- GMH deal in 2003- Military and Student Housing split (Jay Crandall) (1:04:00)
- Oak Hill REIT Management- John Fosheim (Green Street)
- Armondo Codina (2005)- Successful Cuban native from a wealthy family there who was an industrial developer with a significant portfolio (1:06:30)
- Florida East Coast formed a JV with
- Fortress bought their company at $87/share (1:07:00)
- Learned that market was too frothy and sold entire office building portfolio
- Formed Iron Point Partners during downturn (1:07:45)
- Evolution of Iron Point (1:09:00)
- Setup entity to raise more capital on distress investing(2008)
- Greenfield development of data centers
- Affordable Housing- Chris Collins– First Atlantic
- First fund close was two days before Lehman collapse (1:10:00)
- Fund 4 Focus
- Graduate Student Housing strategy
- Three Senior Housing JVs (1:10:50)
- Avanti
- Benchmark
- Vista Springs
- Life Sciences (1:11:15)
- Self Storage
- Single Family Rental housing
- JV with Iconiq Capital (2018) (1:12:06)
- Partnership with Divesh Makan, Kevin Foster and Jeff Felder
- Build to suit opportunities
- Ashburn, VA is the largest market (1:13:50)
- Santa Clara
- Chicago
- Pre COVID growth was 20%/yr. growth (1:13:30)
- Zoom has done two years of business in 2 mos.
- Met Principals through other business relations (1:13:30)
- Very little retail (1:14:50)
- Go where people are not (1:15:00)
- Risk assessment
- Risk averse- debt 30-50% for each fund (1:15:30)
- Fund investors (1:16:00)
- Team (1:16:15)
- Stayed in the equity investment space (1:18:15)
- Oak Hill is in debt space for Bass
Real Estate Markets
- Hard to predict (1:19:00)
- Looking at current portfolio and strategy have some office buildings in California and feel good about them (1:20:50)
- Focused on the main asset classes they have (1:21:25)
- Markets pre COVID were pretty frothy, so were ready to aim at opportunistic transactions and products that are (1:22:15)
- Portfolio not as impacted
- Cites housing markets in suburban NY benefitting from exodus of people frustrated with the COVID issues (1:23:50)
- Funds are forming to address distress
- Public transportation takes a hit pre vaccine (1:26:45)
- Single family rental properties remain a focus (1:27:00)
- Conversion opportunities for malls and other assets (1:28:00)
ESG and Hiring
- Social lens
- Individuals in JVs important (1:30:50)
- ESG (1:31:30)
- Team at Iron Point (1:32:30)
- 12 people in DC and Dallas each
- Reed Madden in SF (1:32:45)
- Hiring strategy- (1:33:40)
- Look for an investment banking experience (3-5 yrs.)
- Deal sense
- Securities
Personal
- Bowdoin College- On board 15 yrs. (1:34:50)
- Piedmont Environment Commission (1:35:20)
- Wins- Family & Each Transition- CB, LPC, Bass relationship (1:36:30)
- Basic real estate skills- CB
- Development- LPC
- Company Investments- Bass/Iron Point
- Losses- People that “went off the track” as partners to do workouts (1:38:30)
- Bass has a strong vetting for hiring (1:39:00)
- Advice to 25 Yr. old self- “Never consider any idea too stupid” (1:40:20)
- Go for it- if you fail at 25, you learn something (1:40:50)
- Billboard
- Iron Point is “below the radar”
- “Create your own luck”– if you aren’t working hard it won’t happen (1:42:00)
- Mort Zuckerman quote: “I view myself as a fisherman- Throw your net in the water and see what comes up”(1:42:30)
- Philosophy of keeping a low profile (1:43:50)
Postscript
- Texas Bank Crisis in 1980s (1:45:45)
- Comparing with today’s crisis regarding the oil markets and real estate markets
- 349 Banks failed in Texas
- Oil price crash then and now (1:48:50)
- Different than today for different reasons
- Lack of demand now
- Too much development and oversupply in 1980s
- Bill Janes was at LPC then and joined Bass and had investment capital to take advantage (1:51:15)
- Reflection of discussion about REIT emergence to bail out the crisis in the early 1990s
- CMBS was the debt vehicle created to takeout former S&L and bank debt that was restructured
- Florida East Coast Industries deal to Fortress (1:54:00)
- Time to shift gears in 2007 and sell their portfolio of office in NY (1:55:00)
- Fortunate to make the call
- John Coe’s Career (1:56:30)
- Coldwell Banker- Joined them in 1983
- Laid off at Homart Development Co.
- Sears (who owned Homart) acquired Coldwell Banker along with Dean Witter in 1981
- Ray Ritchey and Cab Grayson
- Now CBRE
- Joined B. F. Saul Co. in 1985
- Entity sold to Legg Mason in 1992
- Sold again in 2003 to Northmarq Capital
- Story about transition from CB to B.F. Saul Co.
- Commissions were challenging
- Mortgage Banking offers a salary and bonus
- Sold to Legg Mason due to 1991 crisis
- Sold to Northmarq Capital
- Ackman Ziff
- Concord Eastridge
- Bald Eagle Partners
- CGA Capital
- Ceres Capital Partners
- Coe Enterprises, LLC
- Build strong relationships
- Entrepreneurial comparison
- Serve as an advisor to younger professionals
- ULI Washington mentoring
