Monday Properties hires new acquisitions head

Monday Properties has hired Jonathan Geanakos as executive vice president in its New York office. In the newly created position, he will head up the company’s new acquisition and investment efforts and look to develop new investment opportunities and relationships with capital partners.

Geanakos, who is the first person at the company to be solely focused on acquisitions, will be “a growth agent for the firm,” said Anthony Westreich, president of Monday Properties, which currently owns a portfolio of 14 office properties totaling six million square feet in the New York and Washington, DC markets.

Geanakos is the first new addition to Monday Properties’ now six-person executive team in more than five years, according to the company. He will report to Westreich and chief operating officer Brian Robin and work alongside Richard Brookshire, director of acquisitions and investment management, who will be charged with managing the opportunities that Geanakos brings to the firm.

With Geanakos on board, Monday Properties will continue to seek restructuring and acquisition deals in the supply-constrained office submarkets of New York and Washington, DC. Those opportunities would include high-quality assets that are overleveraged, poorly managed or require redevelopment or a value-added component, according to Geanakos. “Anywhere between core-plus and opportunistic would be a reasonable statement,” he added.

Going forward, Monday Properties, which typically invests through joint venture partnerships, also will likely pursue more programmatic capital, where “we’ll have less partners and will be doing more things with several partners,” said Westreich.

In his 27-year career, Geanakos has served as both a principal and advisor to institutional, corporate and other real estate owners and investors, structuring and executing asset sales, corporate financings, recapitalisations, sale-leaseback deals, note sales and other capital markets transactions in the US and Mexico. Most recently, he was a managing director in the New York office of investment bank Houlihan Lokey and served as co-head of its real estate lodging and leisure group, advising Monday Properties, among other clients.

Geanakos’ relationship with Monday Properties dates back eight years to his days at Trammel Crow, where he was a principal and led its national sale-leaseback practice.  In June, he advised Invesco Real Estate as Monday Properties’ new partner in the recapitalisation of the latter’s New York trophy property, The Helmsley Building at 230 Park Avenue.