Capmark pros start new firm, move to Philly

Revised:  Scott Roth and Patti Unti have left the Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) team they co-head at Capmark Investments LP (formerly GMAC Commercial Mortgage) in Horsham, and  formed a new firm, Ventras Capital Advisors LLC, in Center City to manage real estate investments and set up new real estate funds.

The deal's been in the works since at least July (ADD: June 30, Unti say.) Ventras is owned by Unti, Roth, and MBH Enterprises of Denver, a buyout firm which helped the pair finance the purchase of Capmark's contracts to manage $5 billion in CMBS investments for private clients, giving the new firm immediate fee income and a big nest egg. They're starting with a total of seven former Capmark employees; they plan to hire more people, including specialists in distressed properties.

Unti and Roth joined GMAC back in 1997 and spent the last 12 years riding up (and lately down) with the mortgage securities business ("deal sourcing, bond analysis, credit due diligence, financing, and disposition" of properties, both "long and short"), in which GMAC and its rivals repackaged office and industrial building loans so they could be easily sold to investors.

Demand for CMBS collapsed in the credit crisis of the past two years. But Roth, Unti and their backers say their skills are still in demand - by investors who own hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of existing CMBS, and by others who hope to invest in real estate at today's comparative bargain prices. Commercial real estate has to be analysed case-by-case, not "statistically" like home loans, says Unti.

Ventras is relocating from Horsham to the Mellon tower in Center City, five minutes from Roth's home, "because I lost the coin toss," Unti told me. Also because they plan to expand, and Mellon is "just an hour from New York by Acela train, which is quicker than a lot of people who work there and live up there can get home," Roth said. Plus Philadelphia is a lot more interesting and a better place to run an investment business than the suburbs, he added.

Also leaving Capmark: EVP Jacqueline Brady, SVP Margaret Blakey and SVP Brent Morris, with five support staff. They're joining Bank of New York Mellon Corp.'s Urdang investment management unit. Brady and Morris will work from a new office in Plymouth Meeting; Blakely is moving to New York.