This week, Cornell’s Baker Program in Real Estate is excited to welcome Richard Latella as the next featured guest in its 2016-2017 Distinguished Speaker Series. Mr. Latella is an Executive Managing Director of Cushman & Wakefield and the Global Leader of the company’s Retail Valuation Practice. In this capacity, Mr. Latella leads approximately 120 senior-level appraisers specializing in regional malls, department stores, and other major retail property types in 99 markets around the world.
Mr. Latella joined Cushman & Wakefield’s then-national headquarters in Philadelphia in 1983 as a Senior Appraiser. By the mid-to-late 1980s he began to develop a core specialization in retail valuation, with an emphasis on regional/super-regional malls. His relocation to Cushman & Wakefield’s World Headquarters in 1988 directly addressed a need to better serve global capital providers and institutional clients that lend on significant retail properties.
Recognizing this need, Mr. Latella helped establish Cushman & Wakefield’s first specialty appraisal practice in 1990 devoted exclusively to the retail asset class. Over the ensuing years, Cushman & Wakefield’s Valuation & Advisory group has built its business model around specialization and now has over 20 specialty practices across a myriad of industries and property classes.
He currently serves as Executive Managing Director and Practice Group Lead for the Retail Valuation Practice. In 2014 the global team completed nearly 13,000 appraisals and his domestic team completed valuations on 14 of the top 20 sales and financing transactions in the United States. Mr. Latella’s appraisal and consulting assignments have been international in scope and have included a full array of property types, including commercial, industrial, multifamily residential, hotels, and special-use properties such as hospitals and nursing homes. He is qualified as an expert witness in retail matters and testified in bankruptcy litigation cases. He has been a guest speaker before numerous real estate and advisory organizations throughout the world.
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Cushman & Wakefield is the world’s third largest property-services firm. Following its 2015 merger with DTZ, the combined company had approximately $5.5 billion in annual revenue and 4.3 billion square feet under management. Founded in 1917 by brothers-in-law J. Clydesdale Cushman and Bernard Wakefield, Cushman & Wakefield now has 43,000 employees in over 250 offices worldwide. The company offers a wide range of property services spanning capital markets, investment and asset management, consulting, global occupier services, leasing, and valuation and advisory roles.
The students and faculty of the Baker Program are privileged to welcome Mr. Latella to campus for a lively discussion centered on the retail real estate sector.
