Guggenheim Commercial Real Estate Finance, LLC and Pillar Multifamily, LLC Announce Launch of New Affordable Housing Division

NEW YORK, Nov. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Guggenheim Commercial Real Estate Finance, LLC ("GCREF"), a Guggenheim Partners company, and Pillar Multifamily, LLC ("Pillar"), an affiliate of Guggenheim Partners, today announced the launch of a new affordable housing division. Based in New York and San Francisco, the division will be led by the team of Andrew Weil and Justin Ginsberg, who have joined GCREF as Managing Directors.

The team will be jointly responsible for building, managing and growing the platform for GCREF and Pillar, and will report to Anand Gajjar, CEO of Pillar Multifamily, LLC. The group's work will include oversight of the financing of affordable multifamily properties through Fannie Mae, FHA and Guggenheim Partners' proprietary life insurance company capital; deploying conventional equity for the preservation of affordable properties; and developing new financing products to meet the needs of developers and investors in the affordable housing space.

Pillar CEO Anand Gajjar remarked, "We are fortunate to have industry veterans such as Andy and Justin help us expand our real estate finance business.  Their focus on the affordable housing sector will be immensely valuable to all of our clients including investors, developers and borrowers."

"This team's experience in the sector, as well as their history working together, makes them ideally suited to lead our new affordable housing division," said Robert Brennan Jr., Senior Managing Director and head of Guggenheim Commercial Real Estate Finance. "With these additions to our new division, we will now have more than 35 years of combined experience across our platform."

Prior to joining Pillar, Weil and Ginsberg worked at CW Capital LLC, and before that worked together for more than 15 years at Centerline Capital Group, where they led the Affordable Housing Group. Weil served as an Executive Managing Director and Head of the Affordable Housing Group, and Ginsberg served as a Senior Managing Director. Together they successfully oversaw the acquisition and disposition of properties with low income housing tax credits; the origination and structuring of institutional funds; debt originations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and private placement Tax Exempt Bonds. During their tenure with Centerline, assets under management grew to over $10 billion.

About Guggenheim Commercial Real Estate Finance
Guggenheim Commercial Real Estate Finance, LLC, a Guggenheim Partners company, is a national commercial real estate lending business that sources, underwrites, funds and services commercial mortgages throughout the United States. GCREF originates a broad array of loan types for multiple capital sources, including Guggenheim Partners' proprietary portfolio and select managed accounts and fund arrangements, as well as for execution in the capital markets (securitization and syndication).

About Pillar Multifamily LLC
Pillar Multifamily, LLC, a Fannie Mae Delegated Underwriting and Servicing (DUS®) lender, was started in 2010 and offers a full array of financing solutions to owners of multifamily properties. Pillar's capabilities include financing solutions for market-rate and affordable-housing multifamily mortgages, student housing, senior housing, manufactured housing and credit facilities.

Media Contacts
Torie von Alt, Guggenheim Partners +1 (212) 378 6216
Brunswick Group +1 (212) 333 3810

SOURCE Guggenheim Partners