Nelson Mills, as President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Columbia Property Trust, Inc., is responsible for the company’s overall strategy, capital transactions, operations and the performance of its portfolio of investments.
In his exclusive 3,549 word interview with the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Mills details his operating and strategic vision based on his 30 years of experience in the real estate investment and financial services industries.
Mr. Mills took on a big job at Columbia as a U.S. real estate asset manager:
“So we set out to accomplish several goals: One was to consolidate the portfolio into fewer markets. Importantly, we wanted to choose what we thought were the best long-term markets for Class A office, so we settled on Manhattan, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
We’ve now sold 65 of our original 75 properties, which equates to just over $4 billion of transactions across our $5 billion of owned assets, and we have redeployed the capital into our selected markets.”
The CEO has detailed location based logic for his investment strategy:
“But to go one step further, even within those three markets, we’re very particular about the submarket, the neighborhood and the type of property we invest in.
For example, in Manhattan, we’ve focused on Midtown South and smaller floorplate, boutique buildings. They’re well-located, with nice amenities but with smaller, flexible, more manageable floorplates.
The traditional financial district building in upper midtown, with the larger floorplates and the more commodity-type office space, has struggled a bit, and they’ve lost a lot of their tenancy to the new construction around the city.
Midtown South has not experienced that attrition and has continued to grow rents very substantially. So even within Manhattan, we’re focused on a particular type of building, location and submarket within the city.
We’ve done the same thing in our other markets. For example, in D.C., we’re only focused inside the district. There are some fine properties and some good submarkets in Virginia, but we’ve really focused on CBD D.C.
In San Francisco, we’ve stayed in the central business/financial district; Market Street and just south or north of Market has been our focus.”
Get the complete detail on this investment opportunity by reading the entire 3,549 word interview, only in the Wall Street Transcript.
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