Goldman Sachs loses long-time real estate executive

Peter Weidman, co-head of Goldman Sachs’ global real estate credit business, has left the New York-based investment bank after a two-decade tenure.

“After 22 incredible years at Goldman Sachs I have decided to leave the firm,” Weidman wrote in an email sent to friends and colleagues Tuesday and seen by PERE. “I am extremely proud of what we have built and accomplished in our real estate investing business over the past two decades.”

In a memo sent last month announcing Weidman’s retirement, Julian Salisbury, global co-head of Goldman Sachs’ asset management division, wrote: “Throughout his 22 years with the firm, Peter has played an important role in the growth of our real estate investing franchise, particularly in building our real estate credit funds and helping to establish many of our equity investing platforms. Peter has been a trusted advisor to our clients and helped form long-lasting partnerships with many of our largest investors.”

Weidman, a partner in Goldman Sachs’ real estate investing business in New York, was co-chief investment officer of the firm’s Real Estate Credit Partners fund series, which the firm launched in 2009 with Goldman Sachs Real Estate Mezzanine Partners. Goldman Sachs went on to amass $1.8 billion in equity for Broad Street Real Estate Credit Partners II in May 2014 and $4.2 billion for Broad Street Real Estate Credit Partners III in January 2018. The funds focused on direct originations of both senior and mezzanine loans backed by high-quality assets in major markets in the US and Europe, ranging in size from $100 million to more than $500 million.

Richard Spencer, who was co-CIO of the fund series with Weidman, will now become the sole CIO. Spencer, who is based in London, oversees real estate credit in Europe, while Lee Levy and Andrew White are co-heads of US real estate credit investing.

In an article published by affiliate title Real Estate Capital last month, Weidman commented on the growth and evolution of real estate debt as an investment strategy over the past decade. “When we launched the strategy after the financial crisis, we had to educate investors about real estate debt and how we would go about making loans,” he recalled. “Now, everybody knows about real estate debt and conversations are focused on investors finding out exactly what the strategy is and how it fits with their portfolio. These days, there are few investors that are not interested in real estate debt and just want to do real estate equity.”

In his email, Weidman said he had yet to plot his next career move. “I have no new plans at this time other than to relax and play some golf over the summer while I figure out what my next chapter will be,” he wrote.

Weidman joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in the merchant banking division in New York in 1999 and was named managing director in 2007 and partner in 2016. He was a member of the asset management real estate investment committee.

Prior to the consolidation of the real estate businesses of the bank’s merchant bank division, special situations group and assets management business into one merged entity under Goldman Sachs Asset Management in 2019, Weidman was MBD’s global head of real estate credit. He also was one of six managing directors within MBD’s real estate investing group, along with Alan Kava, James Garman, Richard Spencer, Heather Mulahasani and Jeffrey Fine. Before joining Goldman Sachs, he was an analyst in the real estate investment banking group at Salomon Brothers and at Averstar Capital Partners, a real estate development and private equity firm in New York.

Mulahasani, who spent most of her own 20-year career at Goldman Sachs in the real estate merchant banking group, left in April after a one-year stint as a partner in infrastructure merchant banking.