Connecting Capital: Real Estate Private Equity in Emerging Markets

Moderator

Shekar Narasimhan
Managing Partner, Beekman Advisors
Shekar Narasimhan is Managing Partner at Beekman Advisors which provides strategic advisory and investment banking services to real estate and financial services companies and CEO of Beekman Helix India Partners, a real estate merchant bank focused on providing capital solutions to developers and promoters of commercial projects in India.

Shekar was Chairman & CEO of the WMF Group, a publicly traded, commercial mortgage financial services company. WMF was one of the largest such firms in the country before being acquired by Prudential in 2000.

Shekar is on the Executive Committee of the National Housing Conference, Campaign for Affordable Housing and National Multi Housing Council. He is on the boards of the Community Preservation Development Corp. and Low Income Investment Fund. He was appointed a Fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. Shekar is active in the Indian American community as Co-Chair of the DNC's Indian American Leadership Council, Board member and former Chair of Upakar Foundation and former Treasurer of the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple, Lanham, MD.

Shekar received numerous awards and recognition in the real estate industry including the Mortgage Bankers Association's highest honor in 1999 and the Fannie Mae Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. He holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India and an Business, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sundaram Rajagopal
Managing Director, Real Estate Private Equity India

Sundaram Rajagopal is Managing Director and a principal of Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners and Head of the Real Estate Private Equity Group's activities in India. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers in 2006, Mr. Rajagopal served as the managing partner for Third Point India LLC, a partnership dedicated to real estate and other special situation investments in India. Prior to joining Third Point India, Mr. Rajagopal was a vice president at Starwood Capital Group, where he focused on transaction execution for a variety of asset classes in the United States and Europe over a period of three years. Prior to joining Starwood, Mr. Rajagopal served as the managing director of Sundaram Architects Private Limited in Bangalore, India, where he was responsible for the design and management of over 30 building and infrastructure projects. Mr. Rajagopal has 15 years of real estate experience, and holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.S. in Structural Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School.

Burak Oymen
Founder and CEO, Capital Partners

Burak Oymen is the co-founder of Capital Partners. A graduate of the Temple University Business School, Burak holds a BA and an MBA in international business, marketing, and strategic management. Burak Oymen's professional experience includes 12 years in the real estate markets of Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. Burak Oymen was based in Moscow from 1994 to 1998. He initially worked for Mosenka, the leading real estate development company in Moscow at the time, where he served in a number of roles including as the company's deputy general director. He later worked for DTZ, the multinational real estate advisory firm, where he was responsible for corporate services. In 1998 he co-founded Resco A.S., which in 2000 became became the representative of Colliers International in Turkey and the leading commercial real estate advisory firm in Istanbul. In 2001 Burak moved to Kazakhstan and teamed up with Serzhan Zhumashov to establish Capital Partners. From 2001 to 2003 Burak Oymen was based in Almaty and focused on developing the commercial real estate portfolio of the company. In 2003, he moved to Moscow to focus on the international expansion of Capital Partners. Since early 2006, Burak has been based in Istanbul and spends most of his time managing Capital Partners' operations in Turkey, Russia and the Ukraine.

James S. Hughes

President, Boston Andes Capital, LLC

Mr. Hughes is currently President of Boston Andes Capital, LLC (“BAC”), a real estate investment and advisory firm focused on certain countries of Latin America and based in Boston Massachusetts.  With an office in Buenos Aires, BAC has invested in smaller real estate investment properties in Argentina and Chile since 2003. BAC has also brokered larger forestry investment projects based in Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Guatemala. Mr. Hughes, born in 1942, received degrees from Dartmouth College (BA, 1964), Thayer School of Engineering (BE, 1966), and The Amos Tuck School (MBA, 1966). From 1967 to 1969, Mr. Hughes taught business courses at the Business School of Universidad Adolfo Ibanez in Vina del Mar, Chile. Between 1972 and 1986, Mr. Hughes was a Managing Director of The Boston Financial Group, a real estate services firm based in Boston, MA, where he was responsible for underwriting equity investments in real estate projects located throughout the United States. The firm arranged financing for over 500 properties valued in excess of $4.0 billion. In 1986, Mr. Hughes founded Norwich Company which acquired and managed real estate investment property through a partnership investment fund. This fund was entirely liquidated by the end of 2001.  Between 1975 and 1995, Mr. Hughes participated as an investor in the formation and operation of several firms that did business in the Southern Cone of South America. One was FRUPAC, a firm dedicated to the export of perishable produce from Chile to the United States. Another was Inventa Corporation, a consulting firm dedicated to assisting client firms with commerce between the United States and the Southern Cone. Mr. Hughes has been or is a director of several private and public companies and not for profit entities based in the United States and in Latin America.

Ruifen Xu
Global Real Estate Portfolio Investment Head, Dow Portfolio Investments

Ruifen Xu heads Global Real Estate Portfolio Investment for Dow Portfolio Investment (The Dow Chemical Company Corporate Pension Plan). In this role, she manages global real estate investments on behalf of the Dow Employees’ Pension Plan and the Union Carbide Employees’ Pension Plan. Ruifen’s responsibilities include managing the existing real estate portfolio and building the international and emerging markets real estate investment. Ruifen has more than 10 years real estate and finance experience in the markets of Asia, United States and Germany. She started her career at China Shanghai Real Estate Management Bureau in the real estate joint project with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH. She has a Master’s in Real Estate from Columbia University, a MBA in Real Estate from Hong Kong University and Fudan University Joint Program, and Bachelor degree in Municipal Civil Engineering from Shanghai Tongji University.