Weekly People & Company News

Beginning this week, Connect CRE California will provide a roundup of hiring, promotion and company news from across the state every Friday.

• Michael Wesson has re-joined Pearlmark as a managing director and opened its Irvine office. With more than 20 years’ real estate investment experience, Wesson joins Chicago-based Pearlmark from CIBC, where he held numerous roles over nine plus years in New York and Newport Beach, most recently leading CIBC’s senior loan origination efforts in the Western Region.  

• Irvine-based ATTOM, a curator of land, property, and real estate data, has appointed Lauren Trevathan as the new chief of staff, while Karen Tang joins the company as chief customer officer. With more than 15 years’ experience in real estate leadership capacities, Trevathan is now responsible for driving companywide initiatives for ATTOM. Before joining ATTOM, Tang was VP of customer success at ActiveCampaign. 

• San Francisco-based Woodruff Sawyer, one of the largest independent insurance brokerages in the U.S., has hired Jamin Valdez as VP, construction. He will be based in Southern California. Before joining Woodruff Sawyer, Valdez was an SVP for NFP. Before that, he was a VP for JLT Specialty and an account executive for Aon Risk Services. Valdez will partner with construction clients to navigate complex global commercial property and casualty insurance challenges, with a focus on construction risks. He will also specialize in environmental insurance and environmental site analysis. 

• Allen Matkins, a full-service real estate and business law firm, announced that Margaret “Marty” Akerblom, Nicholas DuBroff, Emily Feder, Peter Griffin, Timothy Kelly, Grayson “Trey” Marshall, Nathaniel Touboul and Andrew Wood have been elected to the firm partnership. The new partners represent various practice groups, including real estate, litigation, land use and environmental. They’re based in the firm’s Los Angeles, Orange County and San Francisco offices. 

• John Roth has joined CBRE in Sacramento as VP. Prior to joining CBRE, Roth worked as a VP at Cresa. He has more than eight years’ experience representing occupiers with their commercial real estate needs, nationally, regionally and locally. 

• Christina, a Malibu-based real estate developer, manager, and sponsor, added John Robertson to its leadership team as managing director of investor relations. He joins Christina from CrowdStreet, the largest online commercial real estate investment platform in the U.S., where he was one of the platform’s first employees. 

• Graystone Capital Advisors, a leading investment sales brokerage based in Newport Beach, has promoted Julius Swolsky to SVP. Swolsky joined Graystone in 2018 and specializes in investment sale advisory for owners of single and multi-tenant real estate across all markets. He has completed nearly $1 billion in deal volume since his start in commercial real estate. 

• Hahn & Hahn LLP announced the retirement of partner Scott Jenkins effective June 30. A former managing partner, Jenkins has practiced business and real estate law with the firm for more than 38 years. He has been the lead attorney on many significant real estate projects in the Pasadena area.  

• Net lease REIT Realty Income Corporation, based in San Diego, has priced a euro-denominated public offering of €550 million of 4.875% senior unsecured notes due July 6, 2030 and €550 million of 5.125% senior unsecured notes due July 6, 2034. The public offering price for the 2030 notes was 99.421% of the principal amount for an effective annual yield to maturity of 4.975%, and the public offering price for the 2034 notes was 99.506% of the principal amount for an effective annual yield to maturity of 5.185%.  

• Moody’s Investors Service has recognized the improved financial strength of the California Housing Finance Agency by upgrading CalHFA’s Issuer Rating to “Aa2.” It is the highest rating in agency history and is among the top ratings that Moody’s assigns to housing finance agencies nationwide. It also comes after another major credit rating agency, S&P Global Ratings, upgraded CalHFA’s rating to “AA” last December.