Situs, a global commercial real estate advisory firm, has expanded its West Coast presence – by now providing clients in the region with its commercial real estate (CRE) products and bank advisory offerings – and has hired Eric Smith as business development leader for the region.
In addition to developing new business opportunities, in the newly created role of business development leader, Smith will work with the firm's clients in areas such as liquidity, valuation, capital, financing, servicing and investment, says the company.
Based in Situs' San Francisco office, Smith will report to Kenneth Segal, head of Situs' bank and loan advisory group, and Eric Lindner, executive managing director and head of Situs' global servicing businesses.
Situs says the services its West Coast clients are using include CRE advisory, bank recapitalization and loan advisory, back-office fulfillment, primary servicing and surveillance, technology, staff augmentation, valuation management, due diligence and loan underwriting, government-sponsored enterprise and multifamily advisory, lease and loan abstracting, and financial/accounting due diligence.
Smith joins Situs from Loan Value Group, where he served as a managing director focused on establishing sales strategies for a suite of products with senior executives of banks and real estate investment trusts (REITs). He currently serves as an independent director at KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT and is the chair of the organization's conflicts committee, as well as a member of its audit committee.
Previously, Smith spent 23 years at Credit Suisse and its predecessor firms as a managing director for structured product sales, as well as branch fixed income manager, where he supervised a regional group of 15 professionals with sales coverage responsibilities for the firm's clients in the western U.S. He also held multiple roles within First Boston, including vice president of whole loan sales, vice president of fixed income sales, and director of structured product sales.
