I was recently offered a job as a financial analyst on the development and construction team at a major mall developer REIT. Most the people I have talked to with similar REIT experience have worked at places like Duke in the industrial space. I was just wondering what kind of exit opps would be available after working at a retail REIT, would it be similar to Duke or very different?
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What exactly is the job? Are you going to be underwriting potential developments and/or updating pro-formas as the project moves along? Or is this more on the construction side, monitoring costs and such?
Retail is an interesting asset class with a lot of intricacies and learning to underwrite it would be a great place to start your career. Industrial (especially development) has been hot lately with older product being generally obsolete, but underwriting is a little more straightforward. A lot of people are worried about "brick and mortar" retail dying, but I really don't see that happening.
It would be a rotational program through accounting, moving to corp finance then moving to Development finance. So accounting basics, corp finance, then development underwriting. This would be a 2 year program and I know there are some serious developments that are in core locations. AUM 15bn+
Sounds like a really good place to start your career. As I said, retail has a lot of unique (complicating) factors, and learning to underwrite it, you should be able to transfer those skills to other asset classes if you decide that retail isn't for you. Sounds like your exit opportunities would be pretty broad depending on what you like; the benefit to a rotational program like this is that you get exposure to a lot of different aspects of the business and help you decide what you'd like to pursue.
Obviously there are corp finance & accounting needs at every REIT and I would imagine that a lot of this experience would be very transferable. If you like the asset-level RE work more, I think that there is going to be continued opportunity in the retail space in the coming years. Physical stores aren't going to go away, but that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be legacy malls and shopping centers that are left behind by changes in the industry. There are a number of retail developers who are focused on redeveloping/repositioning these obsolete assets.
Having a good brand name on your resume (which I imagine a 15bn retail reit would carry) is going to help you no matter where you decide to take your career.
Thats good to hear, I think the rotational program will be a good place to start, and it was good to hear you opinion. It seems like even working you way up at a REIT is a rewarding option.
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