Marc Schnitzer, who led Centerline Capital Group and Related Capital, has formed a new low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) syndication and asset management company.
He is president and one of the forces behind R4 Capital, Inc., which is preparing its first institutional tax credit fund this year.
Schnitzer brings name recognition and 25 years of LIHTC experience to the firm, including serving as CEO and president of Centerline Capital.
“I have a passion for the business,” he told Affordable Housing Finance. “I’ve formed relationships with developers and investors.”
Schnitzer was part of Centerline and its predecessor companies, Related Capital and CharterMac, since 1986, leading a team that raised and deployed $10 billion in equity in a portfolio of more than 1,400 LIHTC properties. He left Centerline to join an affiliate of Island Capital Group last year.
The move to launch R4 comes at a time when the LIHTC market has shown significant improvement from 2008 and 2009 when the recession forced many companies to stop or reduce their investing activities.
“The market has shown incredible strength in bouncing back,” said Schnitzer, noting that the overall picture is very healthy with strong demand for credits.
R4 is one of at least four new or restructured syndication companies to emerge in the past year or so. The others are Churchill Stateside Group, Hunt Capital Partners, and IFG Capital.
Schnitzer has assembled an experienced team to join him at R4, including Peter Dion, who started and grew the LIHTC practice at KeyBank; Rich Coomber, who has spent 11 years as a LIHTC originator at Red Capital and John Hancock Realty Advisors; and Paul Connolly, who has 10 years of LIHTC origination experience at PNC and National Equity Fund, Inc.
Schnitzer doesn’t think of the company as a start-up. The firm is closely tied with several other multifamily housing companies.
R4 is controlled by brothers Nick and Peter Gould and is part of their group of companies that include Riverstone Residential, the nation’s second-largest multifamily property manager with more than 160,000 units under management; Recap Real Estate Advisors, a leading multifamily advisory and asset management firm; and Regis Group, one of the largest privately owned residential property investment firms in the United Kingdom.
The latest addition gets its name because it is the fourth company that starts with the letter R.
R4 is headquartered in New York City and will also have people based in Boston. The firm also expects to open a West Coast office in the future.
