Paul Smith
Chief Operating Officer
Paul Smith joined Brook Partners in 2010 as chief operating officer and oversees the firm’s advisory services business. He brings an extensive background in managing real estate investments for institutional clients, including portfolio management, marketing, financing, acquisitions and dispositions, as well as direct oversight of a former public REIT with more than 350 employees. Mr. Smith has more than 26 years of experience in dealing with institutional real estate clients, including General Motors, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, the endowment of Stanford University and GE Asset Management. He has been involved in real estate investments in virtually every product type.
From 2005 to 2010, Mr. Smith was a managing director at Crescent Real Estate. At Crescent, he led the management team that was responsible for executing investment strategies for Morgan Stanley after it took Crescent private. This included the disposition of more than $2 billion in office properties located throughout the U.S. The portfolio originally included more than 30 million square feet of office and retail space in 35 separate properties. Additionally, Mr. Smith was involved with the oversight of more than $1 billion in resort properties ranging from Desert Mountain in Arizona to the Ritz-Carlton Dallas and the Ritz at Lake Tahoe.
Prior to Crescent, Mr. Smith was with INVESCO Real Estate. There, he was responsible for the structuring of a $326 million commingled fund. This included working directly with legal counsel and audit groups for the fund. Clients ranged from large public plans to endowments, foreign investors and high net worth investors. Additionally, Mr. Smith was responsible for the execution of all debt financing activities within INVESCO’s multibillion dollar portfolio. He also maintained responsibility for a number of separate account portfolios prior to the closing of the commingled fund.
From 1989 to 2000, Mr. Smith was a portfolio manager for a $1 billion portfolio of office and retail properties at Sarofim Realty Advisors. In this capacity, he was responsible for oversight of the firm’s asset management group, which handled numerous commercial and multifamily properties across the U.S.
Mr. Smith’s real estate career began in 1985 at Republic Bank, the predecessor to Bank of America in Dallas. At Republic, he was responsible for a portfolio of commercial real estate loans totaling more than $250 million. Paul is a graduate of Harvard University and received his MBA from the University of Texas in Austin. He is a native of Dallas and is married with three children.