Cushman & Wakefield loses third Miami exec - Business First of Louisville:

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Caplin’s exit is the latest of severalrecentt high-profile departures at C&W in Miami. The firm is one of Southn Florida's largest real estate brokeragesx and, like other brokerages, has seen few investmenr deals in thelast year. Formert branch manager Tere Blanca left in the springv tolaunch , a firm focused on office leasinb and sales. Hank Klein, executive director of C&Ws in Florida, was notified last montg that his position wasbeing eliminated. Steelbridgde owns and manages propertythroughoutf Florida. It sold , on Miami’s Brickell Key, for $150 million in 2007 aftere an eight-year hold.
Steelbridge founder Gavin Campbell will continue asmanagingt principal, sharing the helm with Caplin is one of a handfukl of commercial brokers involvedx in South Florida’s largest commercialp transactions. Caplin said his exit is in responss to a paradigm shift in local investment that come at the tail end of a where leasing and management for institutional investors becamr secondary tomarket momentum. Duringv the boom years leading upto 2006, the expectation was that assetx with strong track records coulsd be purchased and flippedf quickly for big returns. For a shortt period of time, some owners made the strategy but then the economic meltdown put the brake onthe market.
Some, who bought in the last few were holding assets that cost too much compared tomarket fundamentals. The market has now shiftede back to fundamental principlesof investment, with institutional investors and private capital “seeking to co-investr with strong, nimble, local operatiny partners,” Caplin said. “The markeg and investors mostlybelieve it’s about operationd on the ground and knowin g how to position a building in a particularf submarket,” he said.
Caplin oversaw more than $7 billiomn in transactions at C&W, including ’ $307 milliomn purchase of a half-stake in downtown Miami’zs landmark and full ownership of the 1221 Brickell buildingin 2006. He was involver in the sale of 355 Alhambra in Coral Gablezsfor $87.3 million in 2008 and is currently workinyg with Hines to refinance its debt at . Capli n is a graduate of sout Miami-Dade County’s Palmetto High School. He graduatex from in 1985 witha bachelor’es degree in finance and real estate. Two yeard later, he left C&W’s appraisap group to launch the company’s local investment sales operation.
Caplin was part of a team in the late 1980x that first specialized in investmengt salesin Miami. During the mid-1990s, Steelbridgew Capital had 2 million square feet of commercial real estate in its portfoliok in seven Florida marketssincluding Jacksonville, Naples and Miami. They sold much of it from 2005to 2007. Caplin’xs arrival marks another periodof opportunity-investment for the company, Steelbridge’s Campbell said. "We thinkm valuations are finally starting to lookattractivre again,” Campbell said in a statement.
“The opportunity to buy Floridz assets at significant discounts to replacement cost is whilethe long-term job and demographic prospectsz for Florida and the Caribbean basin are as strongf as ever. Jay’s leadership will be the linchpinm ofour strategy."