JPMorgan Asset Management Names New Head of Americas Real Estate

Gillian Tan, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Chad Tredway will rejoin the company’s asset-management arm as its head of real estate in the Americas.

He will succeed Mike Kelly, who is retiring, after a transition period, JPMorgan said in a statement.

Tredway is “ready to take the reins,” George Gatch, chief executive officer of JPMorgan’s asset-management unit, said in the statement.

Tredway, who previously held roles including head of real estate banking within JPMorgan’s commercial bank, left the lender in 2021 after roughly 13 years to found Trio Investment Group. JPMorgan will assume management of Trio, which specializes in the sale and leaseback of properties.

The bank will seek to expand Trio, which focuses on industrial properties including warehouses as well as retail buildings, according to Anton Pil, head of global alternatives for JPMorgan’s asset manager. Trio has $250 million in assets under management.

Next year may prove to be a trough for US commercial real estate valuations, Pil said.

“There are opportunities to make outsize returns from investments in office properties as occupancy rates continue to rise and work-from-home dynamics continue to fade, which I expect as the unemployment rate picks up,” Pil said.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s real estate arm in the Americas had roughly $74 billion in equity and debt assets under management at the end of September. Recent property bets include the acquisition of Pen Factory, an office building in Santa Monica, California, that counts Activision Blizzard Inc. as a key tenant for $165.5 million. It also entered into another joint venture with AMH, after first partnering with the company in 2020.

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“I’m little bit nervous about multifamily because of the amount of new construction,” said Pil, who said he remains bullish on single-family rentals.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has conviction in US retail properties, in part because remaining landlords have benefited from other owners pulling back from the space, Pil said. The firm’s mall portfolio posts more than $1,300 square feet in sales per month, JPMorgan said.