How Successful Real Estate Investors Are Approaching the Market in 2024

Moderator

Ermias Nessibu

Principal

Mr. Nessibu is involved in all aspects of the firm’s real estate practice, including deal sourcing, structuring, due diligence, asset management, and managing client relationships. He has previously worked with owner-operators where he was responsible for executing real estate debt and equity investments in the residential, office, retail, and hospitality sectors across North America. Prior to joining GCM Grosvenor, Mr. Nessibu worked as an Associate for Pathway Capital Management where he led new deal execution, conducting due diligence on and recommending private equity investment opportunities across various strategies. Prior to that, he was an investment banker with KPMG Corporate Finance where he advised middle-market clients on mergers and acquisitions within the business services group. Mr. Nessibu received his Bachelor of Science in Accounting magna cum laude from Old Dominion University and his Master of Business Administration in Real Estate from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Panelists

Margaret Anadu

Senior Partner

Margaret Anadu is a Senior Partner at The Vistria Group where she heads Real Estate. She is based in New York City.

Margaret has devoted her career to investing which not only generates strong economic returns, but importantly has a demonstrable positive impact on underserved individuals, families, and communities. Margaret is widely recognized as one of the foremost experts on equitable access to capital having invested over $10 billion across hundreds of transactions throughout the United States and was named one of the most influential figures in U.S. commercial real estate by Commercial Observer.

Margaret has been a trusted advisor to many senior government officials at the federal, state, and local levels on utilizing private capital to create more equitable communities. As an experienced investor and thought leader on public-private partnerships, Margaret is often asked to share her views including on CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC and Yahoo Finance. She was named to 40 Under 40 lists by Fortune, Black Enterprise and Crain’s.

Prior to joining Vistria, Margaret was a Partner at Goldman Sachs where she was the Global Head of Sustainability and Impact for Asset Management and Chair of the Urban Investment Group (GSUIG), the first impact investing platform at a major U.S. financial institution and Goldman Sachs’ primary impact investing business. Under her leadership, GSUIG’s portfolio was primarily comprised of real estate with a focus on workforce, affordable, and mixed-income housing, but also included investments in community facilities, educational space, industrial facilities, green infrastructure, student loans, and small businesses. Margaret ultimately grew the business to over $2 billion of investments annually.

While at Goldman Sachs, Margaret was the chief architect of the One Million Black Women investment strategy, the Firm’s $10 billion capital commitment to narrow opportunity gaps for Black women in the United States and by extension their families and broader communities. In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she led a $2 billion relief effort for small businesses.

In April 2022, Margaret was appointed chair of the board of directors of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. She also serves on the boards of the Low Income Investment Fund, the Center for an Urban Future, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Africa Center. Margaret is a graduate of Harvard College and lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children.

Anar Chudgar

Co-President

Anar Chudgar is the Co-President at Artemis Real Estate Partners, where she is responsible for developing, implementing, and overseeing both equity and credit investing platforms. Ms. Chudgar has more than 20 years of experience in real estate principal investing and investment banking. She sits on the Firm’s Investment Committee and serves as Portfolio Manager for the Income and Growth Fund.

Prior to joining Artemis in 2019, Ms. Chudgar spent nine years as a Partner at GCM Grosvenor, where she co-led the creation and growth of the $5.0 billion real estate platform. She has closed on $1.7 billion in joint venture real estate transactions in North America and Europe spanning both equity and debt, leading all aspects of investment management, including transaction sourcing and execution, asset management, portfolio management, and capital raising. Prior to that, Ms. Chudgar was a Principal in Alternative Investments at Credit Suisse Group AG, held positions at Onex Real Estate Partners, iStar Financial, Inc., and began her career at JP Morgan Chase in real estate investment banking.

Ms. Chudgar graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and continues to be involved with the school. She is on the Board of Advisors of the Annenberg Center, a resource for the performing arts at the university.

Ms. Chudgar currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of the Pension Real Estate Association and as Committee Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee at Spark Youth. Ms. Chudgar is an Executive Council member of the Real Estate Finance and Investment Center at the University of Texas at Austin, New York Women Executives in Real Estate (WX), and the Urban Land Institute’s UDMUC Green Council.

Eric Sullivan

Partner

Eric Requenez is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s asset management group in New York. He focuses his practice on private funds, representing fund sponsors, distributors, and investors in connection with the formation, structuring, and capitalization of private investment funds as well as other securities offerings, regulatory and compliance matters, transactions and other corporate matters. Eric is recognized by Chambers USA and Chambers Global as a “private equity: fund formation” leader, and his clients have been quoted saying that he is a “very detail-oriented and experienced private fund counsel”, “able to provide valuable insight and guidance on industry standards”, they “have an excellent working relationship” and “he is accessible at any time.”

Eric focuses on advising fund sponsors and placement agents in the structuring, negotiation and capitalization of U.S. and non-U.S. private funds, including real estate funds, credit funds, energy funds, infrastructure funds and private equity funds. Eric has significant experience representing sponsors in the formation of open-ended real estate, infrastructure, and other illiquid asset funds. According to Chambers, “He has incredibly strong commercial awareness and offers incredibly insightful solutions to complex matters.”

In addition, Eric counsels clients on the formation of advisory and management entities.

Eric also is a frequent contributor to Private Equity Law Report and served on Law360’s Editorial Advisory Board for Private Equity in 2020 and 2021.

Caixia Ziegler

Managing Director, Real Assets and Sustainable Investments

Caixia is responsible for all aspects of MacArthur’s real asset and sustainable investment portfolios, including strategy development and implementation, manager due diligence, selection and monitoring, performance reporting, and so on. The real asset portfolio includes real estate, energy and timber investments.

Before joining MacArthur, Caixia was the Associate Director/Head of Real Estate at the Ford Foundation. Prior to that, she was the Director of Global Real Assets at the National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust, where she was responsible for its approximately $2.5 billion allocation to real estate, upstream energy, timberland and infrastructure investments.

Caixia earned her bachelor’s degree from Xiamen University in China and a Master of Business Administration degree from Wake Forest University. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). 

She is a Board member of Pension Real Estate Association and EPR Properties (NYSE: EPR).