Mr. Azar joined the Hinerfeld team in early 2010, and will seek to grow the firm’s institutional real estate brokerage business on both a local and regional scale. He will also focus on private equity fundraising, principal investments and consulting assignments.
Previously, Mr. Azar was an investment banker with JPMorgan in New York City for over 15 years, where he developed an extensive background and understanding of both corporate finance and commercial real estate. Over the course of his career, Mr. Azar has executed over $35 billion in real estate mergers & acquisition assignments, and has raised over $30 billion in real estate debt and equity capital.
Mr. Azar was most recently a Managing Director within JPMorgan’s Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (“CMBS”) group, where he headed a team of professionals who originated commercial loans from the firm’s real estate investment banking clients. During his three years heading this unit, Mr. Azar and his team successfully originated over $15 billion of fixed and floating-rate commercial loans, which were then either securitized or sold privately by the firm.
Prior to joining the CMBS group, Mr. Azar worked for nearly 12 years within JPMorgan’s Real Estate, Lodging & Gaming Investment Banking group. During this period, he covered a large number of the firm’s institutional real estate clients, and was responsible for executing the full spectrum of investment banking products including mergers & acquisitions, property sales, mortgage placements, sale-leasebacks, syndicated loans, investment grade bonds, private equity placements, etc.
Prior to joining JPMorgan, Mr. Azar worked in the commercial real estate leasing division of Milstein Properties in New York City.
Mr. Azar is a graduate of Columbia University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, and participated in both NCAA track & field and football. He currently lives in Clarks Summit, PA with his wife Megan and their two young sons, Rodman and Adrian. Mr. Azar is also a football and track & field coach at Tunkhannock Area High School.