Behind the Scenes
Jason Underwood, chief executive officer and trustee at Whiterock REIT, shares his insights and enthusiasm about Canada’s investment market, sustainable building practices, and his vision for the future. By Sarah Eadie
June 2005, Whiterock Real Estate Investment Trust (Whiterock REIT) began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the direction of Chief Executive Officer and trustee Jason Underwood. When he introduced the trust, Underwood had dreams of building a high-performing Canadian investment platform that focused on delivering best-inclass services and products to clients. Fast forward five years to today—in a market of limited investment activity—and Whiterock’s portfolio continues to grow, with $900 million in assets owned and managed, 50 percent of which are located in the Greater Toronto Area. In fact, in the past nine months alone, Whiterock has added $370 million (CAN) in real estate to its portfolio, which currently includes office, industrial and retail properties located in select markets across Canada, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Underwood, a Florida native, grew up in a
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In the past nine months alone, Whiterock has added $370 million (CAN) in real estate to its portfolio. www.knowledge- leader.com
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family of real estate developers. His father was a condominium developer who taught him the “bricks and sticks” of the business. After graduating from Cornell University, Underwood was drawn to commercial real estate and the opportunity to build a diverse service platform while connecting with clients. Underwood says his approach to client service is much like operating a small business. “We are getting close to $1 billion dollars in assets under management,” he says, “However, we still have a small business approach: Know your customer and product and continue to service your customer and improve your product.” As Underwood puts it, “Managing our real estate portfolio is like running a resort: Our customers check-in every day, and most often spend more time here than anywhere else. Given that, I want to run an operating platform that is absolutely customer driven.” While customer service drives how Underwood manages his portfolio, enterprising approaches to sustainable business are among his greatest motivators. Whiterock has been heavily involved in Canada Green Building Council’s “GREEN UP Program,” providing tools, performance standards and resources to help building owners and operators understand, measure and compare the performance of their building portfolios. This, in turn, helps building owners find efficiencies and make improvements. “We’ve been gathering all of our utility bills over the past year and have begun tracking our consumption,” notes Underwood. “We’re also working with the Real Property Association of Canada on their ‘20 by ’15’ initiative, a national energy consumption target for office
buildings. The goal is for office buildings to reach a target of 20 equivalent kilowatt hours of total energy use per square foot of rentable space per year by the year 2015. I think it’s a wonderful initiative that we’ve become involved in. My goal for Whiterock is to not only run a best-in-class platform and make outsized returns for our investors, but also be a leader in sustainability.” Underwood’s enterprising approach is also evident in the way his business operates day to day. Whiterock employees work in an open-concept environment without cubicles or private offices. “I sit in the middle, and everyone can hear everything I say and do,” explains Underwood. “I think it’s important that people don’t operate in defined boxes. Everyone should be able to offer suggestions or share their thoughts.” When asked about what lies ahead for Canada’s investment market, Underwood believes “the wind is at our back.” “A lot of people came into the downturn thinking that real estate would perform similarly to the last downturn, but it hasn’t. In our last downturn, commercial real estate was in oversupply; this time around it’s been more financially- and creditdriven,” Underwood observes. “As people start to realize that, I expect to see money coming back to the sector rapidly. There is currently a lot of access to capital in Canada; owners are ready to sell because they can get better valuations now than they could a year ago, and bid-ask spreads between buyers and sellers are closing considerably,” he says, adding, “I expect to see more transactions in the near future, and Whiterock will participate in our fair share.” K L Colliers international Summer 2010
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