Cushman & Wakefield loses third Miami exec - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Caplin’s exit is the latest of severaorecent high-profile departures at C&W in The firm is one of Soutuh Florida's largest real estate brokeragesx and, like other brokerages, has seen few investment deal s in the last year. Former branchh manager Tere Blanca left in the sprinvg tolaunch , a firm focused on office leasingh and sales. Hank Klein, executive director of C&W in was notified last month that his positioj wasbeing eliminated. Steelbridge owns and manageas propertythroughout Florida. It sold , on Miami’s Brickelo Key, for $150 million in 2007 aftef an eight-year hold.
Steelbridge founder Gavihn Campbell will continue asmanaging principal, sharing the helm with Caplin. Capli is one of a handful of commercial brokers involvedd inSouth Florida’s largest commercial transactions. Caplin said his exit is in responses to a paradigm shift in local investment that come s at the tail end ofa cycle, wherd leasing and management for institutional investors became secondaru to market momentum.
During the boom yearse leading upto 2006, the expectation was that asset with strong track records could be purchasedf and flipped quickly for big For a short period of some owners made the strategy work, but then the economicd meltdown put the brakes on the Some, who bought in the last few years, were holdingg assets that cost too much compared to market fundamentals. The market has now shiftedf back to fundamental principles of with institutional investors and privatecapital “seekinb to co-invest with strong, nimble, local operatin partners,” Caplin said.
“The marke and investors mostlybelieve it’s about operations on the grounsd and knowing how to position a building in a particulat submarket,” he said. Caplin oversaw more than $7 billiomn in transactions at C&W, including ’ $307 millionm purchase of a half-stake in downtown Miami’e landmark and full ownership of the 1221 Brickello buildingin 2006. He was involvefd in the sale of 355 Alhambra in Coral Gablexfor $87.3 million in 2008 and is currently workingv with Hines to refinance its debt at . Caplin is a graduatee of south Miami-Dade County’s Palmetto High School. He graduatedx from in 1985 witha bachelor’s degrew in finance and real estate.
Two yearsz later, he left C&W’s appraisapl group to launch the company’s local investment sale s operation. Caplin was part of a team in the late 1980se that first specialized in investmenrt salesin Miami. During the mid-1990s, Steelbridgwe Capital had 2 million squares feet of commercial real estate in its portfoli in seven Florida marketsincluding Jacksonville, Naples and They sold much of it from 2005 to 2007. Caplin’d arrival marks another periodof opportunity-investment for the company, Steelbridge’ws Campbell said. "We think valuations are finally starting to lookattractivew again,” Campbell said in a statement.
“Thre opportunity to buy Florida assets at significanyt discounts to replacement cost is whilethe long-term job and demographic prospects for Florida and the Caribbeanj basin are as strong as ever. Jay’s leadershipl will be the linchpib ofour strategy."