Matthew Reilein has been thinking about the geographic expansion of the National Equity Fund (NEF), the organization he took over last June.
“We have a national footprint and made investments in 48 states and two territories,” he says. “We’ve been spending time identifying where we have less market penetration and market share in certain states and looking for where there may be some good opportunities.”
NEF, a Chicago-based low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) syndicator, is an affiliate of the Local Initiatives Support Corp., which has also been expanding its network, with recent office openings in Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C.
That’s led Reilein and his team to also look at increasing its reach, particularly in the Southeast. “It makes a lot of sense to be working in tandem with them,” he says.
The NEF team has also been spending time thinking about how to expand its overall platform.
“We are fundamentally a mission-driven nonprofit LIHTC syndicator, but at the end of the day we’re also trying to drive intentional, thoughtful capital to support affordable housing,” Reilein says. “That doesn’t always have to be LIHTC. We are looking at how we can expand our lending platform and draw upon our existing investor base as well as new prospective investors into creating and preserving affordable housing.”
He took over as president and CEO in June 2019, following the retirement of longtime leader Joe Hagan. Prior to joining NEF, Reilein served as managing director at Cresset Partners, a private equity firm, where he led the firm’s community development work. Prior to that, he was managing director and head of impact investing at O’Brien-Staley Partners and managing director of community development banking at JPMorgan Chase.
NEF is on pace to have one of its biggest years and has a robust pipeline in 2020, according to Reilein, who says NEF will continue to focus on the LIHTC space and look for gains in market share. The company closed approximately $949 million in housing tax credit equity last year.
“I’m very interested in how we can continue to leverage our existing relationships with developers and investors who are focused on permanent supportive housing and expand that and serve those populations,” Reilein says. “We’re looking at veterans and other special-needs populations and how we can build out that platform.”
