Financial Services >> Sector Roundtables >> April 25, 2005
Merrill Ross is an experienced Senior Analyst, currently covering the housing and housing finance industries at BGB Securities, Inc. Prior to joining BGB Securities, Inc., in early 2009, she spent almost 12 years at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, where she headed research into specialty commercial finance companies and mortgage REITs, and was Lead Analyst on over $7.5 billion of capital raised for such companies. Ms. Ross was previously head of financial institution research with Wheat First Butcher Singer, and was part of the FIG team at Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Brothers over the course of her 20-plus-year career. She was also affiliated with Ranieri Wilson & Co., a merchant banking company, and IBCA, an international bank credit rating agency. Ms. Ross received a B.A. in chemistry from Barnard College and an MBA from Pace University. She was recognized as a top stock picker in the 2003 "Best on the Street" survey in The Wall Street Journal. Profile
JAY P. LEUPP, CPA, is a managing director at RBC Capital Markets,
oversees a five-person equity research team that provides comprehensive
coverage of the multifamily, retail, office, industrial, and specialty
REIT sectors in the United States. His coverage universe includes 60
publicly traded real estate companies. He is one of the few Wall Street
analysts with real estate industry experience. Prior to joining RBC in
2002, he was managing director of real estate equity research at
Robertson Stephens, where he founded the real estate franchise in 1994.
From 1991 to 1994, he was vice president with the Staubach Company,
specializing in the leasing, acquisition and financing of commercial
real estate. He also served as a development manager with Trammell Crow
Residential (1989-1991), the nation's largest developer of multifamily
housing. He holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from Santa Clara
University, an MBA from Harvard University, and is a Certified Public
Accountant. He has guest lectured on REITs at Stanford University and
the University of California at Berkeley, and has appeared and/or
offered commentary on CNBC, CNN Financial, Dow Jones, Bloomberg News,
the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Barron's. He is a member of
the Board of Directors of Sentinel Vision Corporation and Chaminade
College Prepatory (Los Angeles). He is also a member of the Santa Clara
University Board of Regents and is a Policy Board Member of the Fisher
Center for Real Estate at the University of California, Berkeley. Profile
David Harris is a REIT Analyst for Imperial Capital, LLC, in New York. He has been involved with public property companies for more than 30 years and four property cycles. He has spent the past 16 years in the U.S. serving in buy-side and sell-side roles. Before working in the U.S., he was a U.K. property Analyst in London and was involved with Continental European markets. In 1990, he cofounded a German property company that was listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. As a Senior REIT Analyst with Lehman Brothers in the U.S., Mr. Harris was involved with some of the largest REIT initial public offerings of the past decade and was recognized for his balanced view of the sector. His report, “After Seven Years of Plenty,” which he authored at Lehman Brothers, cautioned investors about the risks related to excessive debt two months before the peak of the REIT market in February 2007. Mr. Harris has a B.Sc. from De Montfort University, U.K., and became an Associate of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 1981. Profile
far this year?
Ms. Ross: The mortgage REITs that I primarily cover have retreated this
year. They're down between 10% and
