He first defined the nature of real estate equity fund. The equity fund usually raises capital from wealthy individuals and institutions. According to Mr. Stevens, his real estate fund invests in the office properties located in CBD areas of major US cities, such as New York, Washington, San Francisco and Chicago, because those properties in the CBD areas of major cities provide higher exit liquidity. Typically, the holding period for these opportunistic funds is very short term, ranging from three to five years. Business Stragegy For any opportunistic fund, timing is very important.
Timing here means speed in deciding acquisitions and disposal.
He pointed out reliability, speedy decision making, and flexible deal structures as being Carlyle's strengths. In this project, the firm did not perform any physical improvement after the aqcuisition. Huge profits were made by understanding the nature of the seller, by aggressive re-leasing program and by speedy decision making. Therefore, the firm aggressively renewed most of the leases by extending current lease at market rents or relocating some tenants to other properties. He ended by reminding us that there is little supply but strong demand for real estate professionals who had formal training from real estate specialized education like Cornell's Program in Real Estate program.