Unconflicted Advice…Unparalleled Experience

Crosswater provides independent, unconflicted strategy and manager evaluation, asset workout and commingled fund/partnership restructuring assistance to both tax-exempt and taxable institutional owners of real estate.

Crosswater’s Senior Advisor team consists of seasoned executives with an unmatched depth and breadth of skills learned by successfully navigating through multiple real estate cycles. Their areas of expertise – honed in prominent private and public sector roles – cover all major property types, fiduciary counseling and organizational/relationship restructuring. The more complex the problem the greater Crosswater’s “value add” to its clients.

With successful assignments in the U.S., Asia, Europe and South America, Crosswater is able to operate in most major global property markets.

When added to the Crosswater team’s long experience, its recent assignments have enabled it to develop a keen understanding of why some managers falter while others perform well. With many of its team members having managed important private and public organizations, Crosswater is able to “get behind the numbers” and focus on issues such as alignment of interests, fiduciary behavior, risk management controls and governance structures which have proven to be the keys to investment success. Our Senior Advisors describe it as “underwriting the soul of an organization.” Crosswater’s ability to do a “deep dive” into these important issues makes it uniquely capable of analyzing new investment strategies, vetting manager staffing and structures as well as resolving problem investments and manager relationships.

Importantly, because it is not a traditional real estate consultant, manager or investment banker, Crosswater has found that the managers/GPs it interacts with have been more willing to resolve nettlesome problems…to its clients’ great benefit.

Crosswater has:

  • Served as an Independent Fiduciary to several major public pension funds
  • Prepared comprehensive studies of strategies for investing in non-performing loan pools in the US, Europe and China
  • Assisted a large institutional client in its significant investment in a prestigious multi-national real estate investment manager and later divestment at a substantial profit
  • Assisted a large opportunity fund manager in developing a new organizational structure that would bring focus and clarity to its business model
  • Negotiated a significant reduction of a client’s commitment to an underperforming commingled fund with a concomitant fee reduction
  • Designed improved investor governance rights which will better protect the investor’s interests, yet not unduly constrain the manager’s ability to perform
  • Helped design and lead an investor’s manager review process and implemented a number of client decisions to retain, modify or terminate several firms
  • Assisted a large institutional investor in reconfiguring its management team and leading the search for its Head of Real Estate
  • Negotiated the sale of a client’s controlling interest in a West Coast urban developer
  • Negotiated the release of a client’s very onerous loan guarantee on a failed real estate investment
  • Led the very successful restructuring and recapitalization of a major apartment developer and recently advised the pension fund client on its purchase of that developer
  • Researched the use and structure of emerging real estate manager programs and designed a very successful EM program for an institutional client
  • Led the workout of a large, complex and troubled vineyard investment and a similar large forestland investment
  • Performed deep governance/compliance reviews of several global investment managers and recommended detailed corrective actions
  • Helped an institutional investor devise and execute a historically large sale of multiple LP interests
  • Executed Deep Dive Manager Reviews on multiple major investments
  • Advised a large public pension fund on the pros and cons of acquiring partial or full ownership interests in independent investment managers
  • Advised a public pension fund client on their purchase of a significant private investment manager
  • Provided corporate strategy advice to two well-known investment managers
  • Investigated on behalf of a client a compliance breach/defalcation
  • Assisted a client in valuing their large timber holdings and in the sale of some of those holdings