Alpaca, a New York City-based alternative investments management firm, has launched Alpaca Real Estate (ARE), a new private equity real estate platform.
Daniel Carr and Peter Weiss are the co-founders of the new platform. Carr was previously a principal at Ares Management, where he primarily focused on securing joint venture equity for investments during his 10-year tenure. Weiss joins ARE after a combined 10 years at private equity firm Prospect Ridge (an AllianceBernstein spinout), where he was most recently a managing director responsible for all aspects of real estate acquisitions and investment management. Weiss and Carr worked together in the real estate and lodging investment banking division at J.P. Morgan.
“Today’s reset real estate market creates a prime opportunity for a cycle-tested team to establish a platform with dry powder and without any legacy asset management issues,” said Carr. “Alpaca Real Estate will focus on deployment into high-conviction sectors that have been negatively impacted by capital markets but exhibit strong underlying tailwinds. In addition, we expect Alpaca’s expertise will allow us to implement technology more efficiently than the typical real estate owner, and in doing so create upside opportunities.”
Weiss added, “Establishing Alpaca Real Estate allows us to combine what we believe are strong baseline real estate returns with the potential upside associated with operational and technology-driven overlays. This combination makes for a highly compelling value proposition for institutional investors at a point in the cycle where we have conviction on acquiring assets at reset values.”