FORT WORTH – Fort Worth Investor John Goff, co-founder of Crescent Real Estate Equities and former owner of Houston’s Greenway Plaza, has established a investment fund that will be used to seed capital for new real estate investments.
The fund, known as the GP Invitation Fund I (GPIF), closed after a private, invitation-only campaign raised $200 million.
The fund expects to have in excess of $4 billion in investment capacity by partnering with long-standing institutional relationships.
The fund already has closed or committed to six new investments totaling approximately $400 million. GPIF is targeting investments in all real estate property types, primarily focused on properties in U.S. markets.
“The unique structure of this fund allows us to be strategic in timing, property type, and the structure in which we invest. This flexibility has been critical to our past success and is even more important given today’s market climate,” Goff stated.
Goff has combined the resources of his two real estate firms, Crescent Real Estate Holdings and Goff Capital Partners, to manage the fund. The fully integrated real estate investment, management and development company will operate under the name Crescent Real Estate. Goff serves as Chairman and two long-time partners of Goff, Jason Anderson and Conrad Suszynski, manage the day-to-day activity of the new entity.
Goff’s senior management team joined him as significant investors in GPIF and the new investment fund is the primary investment vehicle for Goff and his team.
Goff’s companies have extensive ownership, investment, management and development experience across all real estate types. Combined, the entities own and/or manage more than $2.5 billion in assets, including The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas; the 530,000 square foot McKinney & Olive office and retail development in Uptown Dallas planned to open later this summer; 240,000 square feet of creative office space recently purchased in four brick-and-timber office buildings in Dallas’ Historic West End District; 1.8 million square feet of creative office in Denver; 7,000 units of multi-family property; wellness lifestyle leader, Canyon Ranch and residential developments in locations such as Scottsdale, Vail Valley and Lake Tahoe.
Goff co-founded Crescent Real Estate Equities with the late investor Richard Rainwater in the early 1990s. Goff was CEO of Crescent as a NYSE REIT and sold the company in 2007 to Morgan Stanley for $6.5 billion. Two years later, he regained control of the Crescent properties in 2009 for 50 cents on the dollar.
Under Goff’s leadership, Crescent acquired or developed over 40 million square feet of office, 12 luxury hotels and over 17,000 high end residences or lots. Goff reacquired Crescent in 2009 in partnership with Barclays Capital. Goff Capital Partners was founded in the late 1990s, originally to focus on distressed real estate debt investing, ultimately acquiring over $6.8 billion in distressed debt.
June 27, 2016