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Multifamily Sales Leader Evan Jennings Loses Courageous Battle with Brain Cancer

By Tony Wilbert

ATLANTA (May 31, 2010) - Very sad news to report out of Atlanta's commercial real estate industry this holiday weekend. Evan Jennings, who closed more than $3 billion of multifamily transactions in his career, lost his battle with brain cancer. Jennings, 65, died Thursday.

A native of Pittsburgh, Jennings founded The Apartment Group in the early 1990s with partner Chris Spain, and they built the multifamily brokerage into a regional powerhouse. In 1999, The Apartment Group expanded to Orlando with the addition of Cole Whitaker as partner. In 2000, The Apartment Group handled the sale of 72 multifamily communities with an aggregate transaction volume of $900 million.

The firm's success caught the eye of Cushman & Wakefield, which acquired The Apartment Group in 2001. Jennings, Spain and about 15 Apartment Group employees joined Cushman & Wakefield and helped lead a super-regional expansion of Cushman & Wakefield The Apartment Group.

Today, Chris Spain, Larry Orr and others from The Apartment Group continue to lead Cushman & Wakefield's Atlanta apartment brokerage team. 

After retiring from Cushman & Wakefield The Apartment Group, Jennings remained very active in Atlanta's real estate industry. He founded and served as president of Jennings Partners Inc., Condo Group LLC and JPI Holdings. He also served as chairman of RentBureau, a consumer reporting industry that aggregates and provides payment histories to the apartment industry.

A Florida State University graduate, Jennings started his career in real estate in 1974 at Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate, specializing in marketing and selling multifamily communities. He then launched Merrill Lynch's first multifamily division and later worked at Johnstown American Commercial Real Estate Services before co-founding The Apartment Group.

Jennings was a loving husband and father who loved to fly-fish. "Before he died, Evan told one of his close friends that he was looking forward to finding the greatest fishing hole in heaven," his death notice says. "Evan truly loved nature and felt totally at home in the outdoors" 

Here's the complete death notice, which appears in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Family-Placed Death Notice

JENNINGS, Evan D. III EVAN JENNINGS, III Evan Jennings, III, aged 65, died May 27th, 2010, after fighting a courageous bout with brain cancer. Mr. Jennings leaves behind a long trail of successes, friendships and stories that will continue to touch the lives of many people for years to come. Evan was a man who lived life to the fullest. His intellectual curiosity and business acumen were defining attributes that contributed to his success as a person and a businessman. Always a self-made man, Evan rose from an entry-level real estate agent to a position of national prominence within the multi-family housing industry. Born on May 30, 1944 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Evan moved to Orlando, Florida in 1959, where he graduated from Edgewater High School in 1962. He then attended Florida State University graduating in 1966 from the School of Business with a degree in marketing. After graduation Evan served in the Army Reserve for six years. During his time in the Reserves, Evan was recognized for his great sharp-shooting abilities. This skill served him well through the years as he was a great wing-shooter and hunter. Evan was the rare person who was able to harness and use his unique skills to make a difference as a husband, father, friend and member of our community. Evan's defining characteristics included honesty, integrity, a wonderful sense of humor and a great desire for learning and discovery. Evan was the type of person that was much more likely to spend his time watching the History and Discovery Channels than sports or other forms of television entertainment. He and his beloved wife, Pam, shared a love for travel and especially cherished their trip to Africa in August 2008. They created many memories with their friends in Cabo San Lucas Mexico where they traveled often. In Cabo Evan was able to enjoy his life long love of fishing, often having huge catches of marlin, dorado and tuna. Despite Evan's love of travel, the two places he loved best were right here in Georgia. Evan and Pam raised their three children at their home in Vinings. Evan was very content to live and entertain in their home in Atlanta, but he never turned down the chance to make the short drive up to Lake Burton whenever the opportunity presented itself. Evan felt a special kinship with the North Georgia Mountains. He repeatedly stated that some of his warmest memories relate to sunset cruises on Lake Burton with Pam and their loving and supportive set of Lake Burton friends. One of Evan's favorite past times was fly-fishing for huge rainbow trout in the Soque River in North Georgia. He was a skilled angler who always released his trophy catch unharmed. Before he died, Evan told one of his close friends that he was looking forward to finding the greatest fishing hole in heaven. Evan truly loved nature and felt totally at home in the outdoors. Always charming and easy to be around - Evan will be missed by all who knew him. Evan's first sales position was in Atlanta with Shell Oil Company. Subsequently he worked with Xerox and Baxter Travenol. In 1974, Evan obtained his real estate license and began working with Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate. He specialized in the marketing and sales of multi-family properties. Evan continued his real estate career with Merrill Lynch where he launched their first multi-family division. From there, he moved to the Johnstown American Commercial Real Estate Services Company before co-founding his first company, The Apartment Group, Inc. in 1996. At The Apartment Group, Evan's entrepreneurial skills were honed and the company was the first to specialize exclusively in the sale of multi-family housing opportunities on the East Coast of the United States. Evan's leadership in the multi-family industry has been recognized for over thirty years. He was a member of the Atlanta Apartment Association, the National Apartment Association, the Urban Land Institute, the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors and the National Multi-Housing Counsel. Evan served as Board Member of the FSU Business School of Real Estate, endowing the Evan Jennings Speakers Series in Real Estate. In Atlanta Evan served as a Director of the Link Counseling Center and St. Anne's School. Evan's honesty, easy smile, sense of humor and keen mind will forever remain an impermeable memory etched on the minds of his many friends and family members. Evan never lost his willingness to help others. Whether he was dressing up as a bunny on Easter to visit children at Egleston Hospital, serving at a soup kitchen or hand delivering presents to the homeless at Christmas, Evan was not a braggart. He was a man who truly appreciated the good fortune that he enjoyed for his 65 years here on earth. Evan's departure from this earth is a loss for all - most notably, it is a loss for his best friend, Pam Jennings, married since 1983. They were devoted to each other throughout their marriage and Pam's unending support of Evan during his bout with cancer was a great source of comfort and support to him. Evan loved his three children very much and provided love, support and unwavering devotion to Trevor, Lauren and Evan. His life will remain with them as an example of a life well-lived. Evan always maintained that he felt like of one the luckiest men in the world. He lived in a time and era when a person could achieve success for himself and his family through a combination of hard work, guts and vision. Evan personified that formula for success and he created a good life for his family. Evan found peace during the difficult last stages of his life through support from friends, family and prayer. Darby and Riley, Evan's faithful dogs provided constant comfort in his last days. In addition to his wife and children, Evan is survived by three brothers and a sister. The family would like to express their appreciation to assistants Richard Manus and John Wallace who provided Evan with gentle care and patience. Also appreciation is expressed to Dr. Gil Watson who befriended Evan in the last few months and who provided spiritual support and loving kindness. A Memorial Service and celebration of Evan's life will be held Tuesday, June 1st at 1:00 p.m. at Northside United Methodist Church with visitation following the service in the Faith and Arts Center. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Evan's name to Hospice Atlanta, 1244 Park Vista Drive, Atlanta, GA 30319 or the Orr Brain Tumor Navigator Fund, c/o Piedmont Hospital, 1968 Peachtree Road, NW, Atlanta, GA 30309. 

Published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on May 31, 2010

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Arcus Capital Partners' Ross Singletary: Managing Wealth in Challenging Times

(Note, this story appears in the May 30th edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Arcus Capital is a client of Wilbert News Strategies.)

By Kathy Brister, for the AJC

Arcus Capital Partners' start was not auspicious. In fact, it was downright unnerving.

Days after Arcus' three partners --- W. Ross Singletary, Steven Edwards and Stephen Sloan --- opened the doors of their Atlanta wealth management firm in September 2008, the financial foundation of American investing began its worst slide since the Great Depression.

But the partners, all of whom had years of experience, forged ahead with their plan for a small, independent firm. And as the big firms stumbled, Arcus found a foothold.

Today, Arcus has about 50 clients and manages a collective $600 million in assets. Most of Arcus' clients come from the Southeast. The newest are entrepreneurs who struck it rich by selling their businesses.

Q: Talk about the clients who are coming to you for financial management after selling their businesses. What's the trend?

A: Three of our four newest clients came from these kinds of situations. It's not that surprising --- certainly capital markets are friendlier and debt financing is easier to come by than it was when we first started. . . . The deals that we're close to have been in a wide variety of businesses: communications, waste management, technology, really across the spectrum.

Q: Is there anything similar about these deals?

A: The companies all had large corporate buyers, and they all were started years ago. They were all started and sold by the founders, who we're now dealing with as clients.

Q: Is someone with an entrepreneurial background likely to be a more risk-tolerant investor?

A: A client like that may have had a very risky strategy, i.e., all of their assets in one basket --- one privately held company. But if the Dow is down 500 points, they couldn't look online to see that their privately held company was probably worth less as well. There is a bit of a transition going from that experience to one where your significant assets are market to market, minute by minute. . . . One thing we've found out through the years is nobody likes to lose money, no matter how aggressive they think they are.

Q: What do you think differentiates your firm from competitors?

A: We aren't incentivized in any way whatsoever to have clients invest in anything except what is in their best interest. If we want to make an allocation change, whether it's to get more aggressive or less aggressive, we don't get paid any differently one way or another, and our clients know that. It's very transparent how they pay us. In the big firm brokerage world, there's a lot of opaqueness.

 Q: How does your compensation structure work?

A: We start with a percentage based on assets under management and scale down depending on the amount. One percent is the max, and the larger the asset pool, the smaller the percentage.

Q: Did clients move with you from your former employer, Credit Suisse, to Arcus?

A: Yes. That's really the $64,000 question in our business: Will your clients continue to work with you? That was very encouraging for us.

Q: Did that create some litigation issues for you?

A: We had some nominal issues that were settled very quickly and amicably.

Q: What questions do clients ask today that they didn't ask five or 10 years ago?

A: They really want to get a handle on where the assets are custodied. Certainly in the post-Bernie Madoff era, people ask a lot more about visibility into their assets, and I don't blame them.

Q: You got started in fall 2008, just before the economy nosedived. Describe those first days.

A: This is something we had thought about doing, for years, really. . . . We finally decided to pull the trigger and resign on Sept. 3, 2008. That was a Wednesday. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized that weekend. Then Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy a few days later. I looked at Steve and Steve and said, 'I know we all had high hopes for Arcus, but I never thought that within two weeks of opening for business we'd be worth more than Lehman Bros.' . . . Those were scary times, for sure. Had we waited another week or two, we probably would have been too scared to have left Credit Suisse, where we all had been for about seven years.

Q: Did your wife ask if you could get your old job back?

A: She was actually incredibly supportive. All of our spouses were.

More about Ross Singletary:

Job title:  Managing Partner, Arcus Capital Partners
Age: 42
Hometown: Thomasville, Ga.
Current residence: Buckhead-Atlanta
Family: Wife Sally and four children
Education: BA-Washington & Lee University and MBA-Columbia University
Hobbies: Golf and attending my children's football, basketball, soccer and lacrosse games along with piano recitals and chess tournaments
Favorite philanthropy: Sheltering Arms Early Education and Family Centers
What you're reading now: The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh and Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley
Favorite travel destination: Cape Town, South Africa (My brother-in-law recently got married there.)
Favorite movie (all-time): Star Wars Episode IV, Gladiator and Ben-Hur
Most-played song on your iPod or MP3: Anything by The Smiths, English Beat, James Brown, Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Steel Pulse or R.E.M.
Favorite thing about Atlanta: Eating at The Varsity and Jalisco's, Taking my Children to Georgia Tech Football Games, watching NYO Little League Football games and reading Furman Bisher (now on his blog). 

New iPhone App Won't Replace Tenant Rep, But...

By Tony Wilbert, Wilbert News Strategies

ATLANTA (May 25, 2010) - The commercial real estate industry has been slow to embrace smartphone apps, but things are about to change. A new iPhone app enables people searching for office space, retail shops and warehouses to point their smartphone at a building and learn all about its available space.

Even commercial Realtors and brokers who have been hesitant to get on the tech bandwagon won't be able to ignore this. If they do, they'll miss out on deals and therefore precious commissions. The free app, soon to be available for Android users as well as iPhone 3GS owners, comes from "augmented reality" app maker junaio and works in concert with a subscription from Rofo. This video shows how the works.

Let's say you point your iPhone or Android at Terminus 200 in Atlanta's tony Buckhead district. Icons alerting you to available spaces will pop up on the screen. You can tap on the icons to see the spaces and to instantly e-mail the landlord rep. So, if tenant reps don't jump all over this, some disintermediation could occur.

The iPhone app, of course, is only one tool and won't replace completely wiped out the tenant rep industry. Successful brokers have morphed into consultants who give clients much more than space-available lists and stats. They add perspective, market knowledge and insider info not available on an iPhone.

Here's more on the app from On the Block, SFGate's (San Francisco Chronicle's) real estate blog.

As a huge fan of commercial real estate who prides himself on knowing practically every available office space in Atlanta, I can't wait to go home and test it out.

WNS Celebrates Action-Packed First Year

 ATLANTA (May 18, 2010) - Happy birthday to me. Well, actually to my company. A year ago today, I opened Wilbert News Strategies LLC for business inside Carter's offices at Atlantic Station.

I started WNS, a PR/communications/social media company with several commercial real estate clients, during the worst commercial real estate market any of us can recall. This backdrop made the past 365 days challenging but satisfying. I realized my goal of firmly establishing WNS in time for the next upswing in real estate.

We also expanded WNS' client roster, anchored by Carter, to include a technology, wealth management and valet parking company and a four-star hotel in tony Buckhead. It pleased me to see my fascination/obsession with social media and social networking translate into new business opportunities. I knew all that blogging and tweeting the past couple years wouldn't be time wasted.

The year's been filled with several new business wins, a few losses and exhilarating and perplexing moments. The highlights include:

1) Working as the local communications rep for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during his May 9-10 visit to Atlanta. It was cool to meet him at a Buckhead party and ask him about the L.A. office market. He showed true class in helping raise awareness of and money for After-School All-Stars.

2) Being in Kasim Reed's room at the Hilton Atlanta when he got the call letting him know he would beat Mary Norwood to win the 2009 Atlanta mayor's race. Serving as mock moderator in the Kasim Reed for Mayor debate prep sessions was pretty cool, too.

3) Landing Carter Chairman and CEO a spot on Bloomberg TV when the national networking broadcast live Dec. 1 from Invesco headquarters at Two Peachtree Pointe.

4) Helping Georgia-Pacific get a story with color art and an info box in The Wall Street Journal's March 31 edition. G-P's $500 million investment in new equipment and technologies in conjunction with the success of Quilted Northern Ultra Plush was big news, especially during the end of the recession.

5) Winning competitive pitches to secure Transwestern Atlanta and The Mansion on Peachtree as new clients. Those calls always are nice to receive. We also received a couple that went the other way.

6) Kicking off Year 2 with great clients, a couple prospects and an improving economy.

As Thornton Kennedy and I embark on WNS' second year, the firm hopes to expand further and is seeking an intern. Come see us.