Blue Vista Capital Management

Blue Vista was founded in 2002 in Chicago with a mission to co-invest with successful investors and developers of all real property types across the U.S. and select international markets.

Investment Type
JV partnership
Acquisition/Fee Simple
Investment Style
Value-add
Development
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Vice President / Portfolio Management

David Katz

Mr. Katz is a Vice President, Portfolio Management at Blue Vista. Working across all of Blue Vista's Funds, his responsibilities include joint-venture modeling, equity pricing, fund-level models, asset management, hold/sell analysis, investor relations and reporting, and portfolio re-forecasting and scenario analysis. Prior to joining Blue Vista, Mr. Katz worked for CMD Realty Investors, an owner/operator of office assets nationwide. At CMD, Mr. Katz was active across multiple disciplines, dividing time between acquisitions, dispositions, and portfolio management. Mr. Katz received his Bachelor of Science in Business Economics from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. In his past professional life, Mr. Katz worked in telecom investment banking with JP Morgan Chase, in New York City, and as the founder/CEO of a knowledge management software company.

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Managing Principal & Founder

George Huber

founder of Blue Vista, Mr. Huber sits on the Blue Vista Capital Management Investment and Management Committees. Mr. Huber's efforts focus on forming and maintaining relationships with qualified local operating partners as well as overseeing the execution of potential Fund investments. Mr. Huber has over 25 years of real estate investment, development and transaction experience. Mr. Huber is the Founder, President and owner of Equity Investment Group (EIG), a Ft. Wayne, Indiana based owner and operator of retail centers. Over the past 20 years, Mr. Huber has led EIG, which included as investors institutional equity partners Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, The Carlyle Group and GIC Real Estate, the real estate investment arm of the Government of Singapore, as the company grew to become one of the largest private owners of retail strip shopping center real estate in the country. EIG's portfolio was comprised of 120 shopping centers in excess of $700 million in value throughout the eastern two-thirds of the United States just prior to its nearly half-billion dollar sale to one of the nation's largest public retail REITs in 2002. Mr. Huber is also CEO/owner of Murphy and Associates, Inc., a Midwest-based developer of non-retail commercial projects, including the Indiana and Ohio headquarters building for Wells Fargo Bank. He began his career in real estate performing office and retail development work in Dallas, TX, including office development for Las Colinas. Mr. Huber holds an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University. He received an MBA with Honors from the University of Michigan.

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Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Todd Jacobs

Mr. Jacobs is a Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the Fund and is responsible for financial and investment oversight. Additionally, Mr. Jacobs is the Chief Financial Officer for EIG. He is responsible for the financing and refinancing of new and existing commercial projects as well as the management of both the accounting and the reporting departments of EIG. Over the course of Mr. Jacob's tenure at EIG, the company grew to one of the largest private owners of retail shopping center real estate in the country. Prior to joining Equity Investment Group in 1994, Mr. Jacobs was a Senior Tax Consultant for Ernst & Young, L.L.P. in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There he was responsible for the management of all staff accountants and researching client tax issues and tax planning. Mr. Jacobs has a Bachelor of Science with distinction in Business from Indiana University in Bloomington. He is a member of the Indiana CPA society.

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Senior Vice President

Irene Moroko

Mrs. Moroko, through her role as Senior Vice President, Portfolio Manager, oversees the student housing fund. Her responsibilities include monitoring investment performance, investor relations and reporting. Asset management responsibilities include monitoring asset performance and strategy, and serving as the liaison with the operating partners on property level issues. Prior to joining BVCM in September 2006, Mrs. Moroko was Vice President in the Portfolio Strategy group of Equity Office Properties Trust responsible for the pricing and financial analysis of the portfolio. During her nine year tenure at Jones Lang LaSalle, Mrs. Moroko was a Senior Vice President in the Capital Markets group in Chicago where she executed over $1.6 billion of real estate disposition transactions. She also held the role of Vice President within LaSalle Investment Management, responsible for the valuation function within the portfolio management group. From 1988 to 1995, she held analysis and underwriting positions at Household International and Draper and Kramer, Inc. Mrs. Moroko received a Bachelor of Science in Commerce degree with a concentration in finance from DePaul University.

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Senior Vice President

Laurie Smith

Ms. Smith has worked in various positions in commercial real estate since 1982 and is currently the Senior Vice President - Head of Asset Management at Blue Vista Capital Management, LLC. Prior to Blue Vista, Ms. Smith was the Senior Vice President - Acquisitions at Strategic Capital Partners, the managing member of a discretionary fund with approximately $750MM in assets. Ms. Smith's prior experience includes eight years at GE Commercial Finance Real Estate in the Chicago office where she held several positions including Region Manager and Senior Relationship Manager in the North American Equity Holdings group. While at GE, she sourced joint venture relationships with over $1 billion in total capitalization, primarily in deals averaging $20-$30MM in total cap. Her career has also included positions as a Principal in the firm of Julian Toft & Downey, where she started and ran the PruExpress program and as the Branch Manager for the Chicago office of General American Life Insurance Company (now owned by Met Life). Ms. Smith holds a B.A. in Political Science from Goucher College, Towson, MD. She holds a Master of City Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).

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Chairman and Founder

Robert Byron

As a Managing Principal and co-founder of Blue Vista Capital Management, Mr. Byron sits on the Blue Vista Capital Management Investment and Management Committees and is responsible for developing relationships with new partners and capital sources for all of the firm's funds. Mr. Byron has over 35 years of real estate investment management and transaction experience, having completed over $11 billion in real estate transactions in his career, including over $3.5 billion of transactions since forming Blue Vista. Immediately prior to forming Blue Vista, Mr. Byron held the position of Chief Investment Officer for the McShane Corporation, a Chicago-based development and construction company. Previously, he led AEW Capital Management's Investment Banking Group. He has also held senior positions with Jones Lang LaSalle and LaSalle Investment Management. Prior to his work at LaSalle, Mr. Byron assisted several Chicago-based real estate entrepreneurs in capitalizing and overseeing their real estate operations. He began his real estate career at VMS Realty Partners where he served as in-house counsel and eventually moved to the transaction side of the business. Mr. Byron began his career practicing law in Chicago. Mr. Byron is a member of the Board of Directors of the Heartland Housing Alliance. Mr. Byron graduated from the University of Virginia in 1973 with a BA with Honors (Government and Foreign Affairs) and from the University's Law School in 1976. His activities on behalf of the University include serving as a board member on the College of Arts and Sciences Foundation Board and participation in the Jefferson Scholarship Foundation program.

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CEO and Founder

Peter Stelian

Peter Stelian is the Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Blue Vista Capital Management. Peter sits on BVCM's Board of Directors, Management Committee and each of its investment committees. He also sits on the board of Peak Campus Companies, BVCM's student housing management and development platform. He was responsible for the formation and development of Peak Campus. He has been responsible for the development and implementation of each of BVCM's investment strategies. Prior to forming Blue Vista, Peter was the President of OurHouse.com; the outsourced home improvement and home services eCommerce platform for Ace Hardware. Peter raised $125mm in venture capital funding for OurHouse and ultimately sold the operations to Amazon.com. Prior to OurHouse.com, Peter spent 11 years at LaSalle Partners and Jones Lang LaSalle. He was the youngest Managing Director in the firm's history and co-developed the firm's CMBS investment platform (investing in below investment grade securities from 1994 through 1998). In addition, he ultimately ran the firm's domestic capital markets platform. Peter completed over $6BN of real estate transactions at LaSalle Partners/JLL in either a principal or advisory capacity. He also was a financial analyst in Brown Brothers Harriman's NYC based M&A group. Peter holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. In addition, he graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania while majoring in Finance and Marketing and also received Phi Beta Kappa honors.

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Principal, Head of Client Capital

DANIEL J. REYNOLDS

Mr. Reynolds is Principal and Head of Client Capital at Blue Vista. He is responsible for building and maintaining capital relationships with Blue Vista’s institutional investor clients, while representing the firm’s investment vehicles around the world. Mr. Reynolds has over 25 years of experience in investment banking, structured finance and capital formation and has advised many of the most prominent organizations in the investment industry, including major pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations and public REITs. Since 1993, he has focused primarily on the real estate industry, representing institutional owners and investors in developing and implementing their capital and investment strategies. Prior to joining Blue Vista, Dan was Managing Director of LaSalle Investment Management’s Global Client Services group. Mr. Reynolds graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelors of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from the University of Notre Dame.

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Chief Operating Officer

PAUL SORENSEN

Mr. Sorensen serves as Blue Vista’s Chief Operating Officer, and the Portfolio Manager for the firm’s Student Housing Platform. Prior to joining Blue Vista in 2014, Mr. Sorensen was an International Director at Jones Lang LaSalle. During his 20-year tenure with that firm, he helped grow the company by: managing three commingled funds for LaSalle Investment Management, negotiating several domestic and international mergers, turning around a domestic subsidiary, expanding the U.S. Capital Markets group as COO, and providing strategic advice to JLL’s largest investor clients. Mr. Sorensen also founded the Portfolio Strategy Group for the $39 billion Equity Office Properties Trust portfolio, and was portfolio manager for the U.S. office and retail investments of three Australian REITs sponsored by Macquarie Bank, and Charter Hall Real Estate. Mr. Sorensen has undergraduate degrees in Accounting and English Literature from Northern Illinois University, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

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Senior Vice President

Ian Russell

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CEO

Stelian Peter

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Chairman

Linda Piper

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Chairman

Robert Byron

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Senior Vice President

Jason Schwartz

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Senior Analyst

Kamila Bazydlo

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Senior Vice President

Gary Mitchiner

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Staff Accountant

Danny Prindle

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Vice President

Heather Estes

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Fund Accountant

Teresa Musielak

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2019-08-26 17:00:00
Key Focus Areas
Asset Management Private Equity Real Estate Real Estate Investing Institutional Investors
Geographical Area
Mapped Location