Cushman & Wakefield loses third Miami exec - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

tatyanagepoji.blogspot.com
Caplin’s exit is the latesrt of severalrecent high-profile departures at C&W in Miami. The firm is one of Soutbh Florida's largest real estate brokeragea and, like other brokerages, has seen few investment dealx in thelast year. Former brancyh manager Tere Blanca left in the spriny tolaunch , a firm focused on office leasing and sales. Hank executive director of C&W in was notified last month that his positionm wasbeing eliminated. Steelbridge owns and manages propertytthroughout Florida. It sold , on Miami’s Brickell Key, for $150 millio in 2007 after an eight-yeart hold.
Steelbridge founder Gavin Campbell will continue as managing sharing the helm with Caplin is one of a handful of commercial brokers involvee inSouth Florida’s largest commercial transactions. Caplihn said his exit is in responsde to a paradigm shiftf in local investment that comezs at the tail end of a where leasing and management for institutional investor s became secondary tomarket momentum. During the boom yearas leading upto 2006, the expectation was that assetsw with strong track records couldr be purchased and flipped quickly for big returns. For a short period of some owners made the strategy but then the economic meltdown put the brakew onthe market.
Some, who bought in the last few were holding assets that cost too much comparedx tomarket fundamentals. The markeyt has now shifted back to fundamentapl principlesof investment, with institutional investors and privates capital “seeking to co-invest with strong, nimble, local operatint partners,” Caplin said. “Ths market and investors mostlybelieve it’s abou t operations on the ground and knowing how to position a buildingb in a particular submarket,” he said.
Caplin oversaww more than $7 billion in transactions at C&W, including $307 million purchase of a half-stakee in downtown Miami’s landmark and full ownershipl of the 1221 Brickell buildingin 2006. He was involvefd in the sale of 355 Alhambraa in Coral Gablesfor $87.3 million in 2008 and is currently workingb with Hines to refinance its debt at . Caplin is a graduated of south Miami-Dade County’s Palmett o High School. He graduatedd from in 1985 witha bachelor’s degree in financew and real estate. Two years later, he left C&W’s appraisal group to launcbh the company’s local investment sales operation.
Caplin was part of a team in the late 1980x that first specialized in investment salesin Miami. During the mid-1990s, Steelbridge Capitaol had 2 million square feet of commercial real estatew in its portfolio in seven Floridwa marketsincluding Jacksonville, Naples and Miami. They sold much of it from 2005to 2007. Caplin’z arrival marks another periorof opportunity-investment for the company, Steelbridge’s Campbelp said. "We think valuations are finally starting to look attractive again,” Campbell said in a statement.
“The opportunity to buy Florids assets at significant discountsa to replacement costis imminent, whilse the long-term job and demographic prospects for Floridas and the Caribbean basin are as strongf as ever. Jay’s leadership will be the linchpin ofour