May 8-9, 2025 | Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach
Waldorf Astoria Monarch BeachDana Point, CAProvisional Start & End Times:
May 8: 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM
May 9: 8:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Preliminary Agenda Topics
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What are the top priorities for real estate CFOs in 2025?
- How is your firm approaching new investments, dispositions and asset management this year?
- Have you seen any material impacts of decisions made by the new administration to this point? What do you envisage for the remainder of the year?
- What is keeping you up at night?
- Interest rates – how are you planning for various scenarios?
- How are you handling the challenge of insurance in today’s market?
- What is the latest with capital availability? Bank activity, CMBS, rescue capital etc.
- Do you anticipate continued valuation challenges in the coming year?
- How is your business/team approaching the tech stack and AI utilization?
- Are your investors making any new noises compared with the end of 2024?
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CRE financing environment: rebound year or stay in the mix until ’26?
- How is this downturn different?
- Capital sourcing – has availability increased or decreased in the past 6-12 months?
- Where are the opportunities? Opportunistic recaps? Mezz and pref?
- How do you deal with interest rate risks? Caps?
- Which types of real estate loans are entering special servicing and receivership, and how might that change over the next 6-12 months?
- What legal implications are most important for real estate owners, and which opportunities are emerging?
- How are you holding onto assets and when does it make sense to hand back the keys?
- Are you financing any new deals? Where is the capital coming from?
- Which projects/property types are able to attract financing and which are not?
- What challenges are you facing when underwriting new deals?
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COO roundtable: optimizing business & investment operations
- Which areas of business and investment operations are you focused on optimizing and improving?
- How do you give your team the freedom to innovate and try new solutions in order to improve business performance?
- Managing operational risk
- How are you utilizing technology to make operations more efficient?
- Promoting company culture and vision in a changing working environment
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Tax outlook under a new administration
- Tax bill update
- What major tax changes are you anticipating?
- Leveraging new IRS cost segregation rules to reduce income taxes
- Reducing property taxes to boost EBITA, market value and loan-to-equity ratios
- Maximizing returns through a better understanding of different state tax laws
- Benefit of utilizing tax advisory services and outsourcing certain functions to ensure you are maximizing value and managing risk
- SEC and new disclosure regulations
- 1031 Exchange and Capital Gains: how are you approaching this?
- Qualified Opportunity Zones 2.0
- Managing those K-1s: what is the key to efficiency and meeting deadlines?
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Creative solutions for owners of distressed properties
- What are the available options for owners facing default?
- Navigating loan extensions and refinancing opportunities
- How to communicate effectively and have difficult conversations with lenders
- Creating a de-leveraging strategy - are you selling strong assets to offset weak ones?
- Building the right advisory team – what skills and expertise should you look for?
- What are the options when you're experiencing capital distress but the property's performance remains strong?
- Utilizing Sale/Leaseback as a potential restructuring solution
- Exploring different loan workout strategies - process, timelines and costs
- Alternative financing solutions for distressed owners
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Risk focus: top considerations in today’s operating environment
- What is top of mind from a risk perspective?
- Analyzing material changes across the spectrum – market, operational, liquidity, credit, compliance risk etc.
- Interest rate risk – hedging and financing strategies
- What is your leadership focusing on in this part of the cycle to manage market risk?
- How are you approaching the increasingly difficult insurance market?
- How do you instill a proactive, conscious and collegial approach to risk management across your teams?
- How can investors and operators harness technology to aid risk management decisions and processes?
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Advancements in fund administration
- Which services are best outsourced to a fund administrator?
- What do emerging managers need to know?
- How do fund administrators and GPs utilize technology to make administrative functions more efficient?
- What do most real estate CFOs find most valuable in terms of CFO advisory services?
- How are CRE companies managing their balance sheets to reduce overall costs?
- Who bears the brunt of responsibility for transparency: the fund administrator, or the investment committee, risk, compliance or operations functions?
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Data focus: sourcing, managing & utilizing data
- What tools are you using to source data?
- How are you ensuring the data is the right data for your needs?
- Implications of using the wrong data on revenue management strategies
- Using technology to analyze and make the most of the data at your disposal
- How are you working around interoperability challenges?
- Data risk management, governance and regulatory challenges
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Best practices for optimizing operations through revenue management
- What are the benefits of a dedicated revenue management strategy?
- How do you allocate resources to analyzing and understanding customer behavior and market trends?
- Managing and analyzing data to better inform decision making at the executive level and at the property level
- Are you utilizing AI to do this?
- Using revenue management solutions to maximize rent value potential
- Reporting tools to ensure transparency between owners, operators and investors
- Which tools do you use to best maximize NOI in the long term?
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How is artificial intelligence revolutionizing real estate investment & operations?
- What are the latest advancements in AI and automation?
- How can these be harnessed by real estate fund managers and operators?
- Which areas of business operations are best suited for automation and AI supplementation?
- Implementing AI solutions and getting buy-in from employees and clients
- Using AI to best utilize data and make investment decisions
- Creating new revenue streams
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Best practices for real estate accounting teams
- How have accounting standards evolved in recent years?
- What challenges are you encountering with new reporting standards?
- Where are your biggest operational pain points?
- Tech solutions and automation in accounting processes
- Lease accounting, revenue recognition and other focus areas
- How do changes here impact investor reporting and internal decision making?
- By property sector, which tenants are making the most significant reductions to their leases and footprints, and how does this impact accounting?
- What are the costs and benefits of working with fund administrators and RIAs?
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Evolution of investor reporting standards & processes
- What reporting challenges are you facing as your firm adjusts its business strategy?
- What reporting capabilities are investors demanding?
- How have you been utilizing technology to optimize these capabilities?
- What are the latest trends in reporting standards?
- How are you using technology and process adaptations to effectively communicate with your investors?
- What degree of transparency are institutional investors looking for as they increasingly seek out value-add and development opportunities, and how do you manage those demands?
- What opportunities exist to improve budgeting and reforecasting? Which systems, processes, teams and best practices do you have in place now, and how do you expect those will change?
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The ‘Talent War’: building & retaining high-performing teams
- How has is the hiring process changing? Is it more difficult to hire high quality entry-level staff?
- Managing prospective employee expectations with regards to work location flexibility and other benefits
- Meeting internal and external DEI targets: managing the essential need for hiring and promoting diverse talent
- Staff training and professional development: what are your companies doing to encourage and provide the future of the industry with the tools they need to succeed?
- Are there any core competencies that perhaps weren’t necessary 10 years ago that are desirable or essential today?
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The evolving roles of the ESG-focused CFO & COO
- Who is responsible for ESG strategy and initiatives? How is your business structured?
- Why is a focus on ESG a good business decision?
- Measuring ESG impact and success
- Telling your ESG story to investors
- What are institutional investors reporting expectations? Disclosure requirements?
- Using benchmarking to improve ESG performance
- What is the role of the COO in sustainability?
- Reducing financial and operational exposure to climate-related risks, changes in energy sources and shifts in energy costs
- How are real estate leaders using technology within their ESG-related processes?
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Technology & innovative strategies to boost NOI
- What approach are you taking to NOI strategy?
- How can investing in technology help improve and sustain NOI?
- What operational efficiencies are most realistic?
- What new sources of ancillary revenue are you finding to improve cash flow?
- Case studies of revenue generation and gaining operational efficiencies
- How are asset management teams changing the way they think about using third parties?
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Transforming finance & operations functions through technology
- What are the key components of your technology investment strategy? How do you track ROI?
- How do you assess the benefits and risks of investing in technology and partnering with third-parties?
- How are innovations in technology impacting commercial real estate values? What risks are they helping to identify and mitigate?
- How are you leveraging technology to manage compliance, hiring and training, and reporting?
- What are the resource expectations and costs associated with implementing and effectively utilizing these systems?
- How do you successfully implement and integrate a new technology platform/product and ensure minimal disruption to day-to-day business functions?
- Training and managing a team for implementation: is this a combination of internal and external professionals?
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Emerging managers middle & back-office essentials: what do you need to know?
- Evaluating different investment models: Deal-by-deal vs. fund vs. hybrid investment models
- How do you choose the appropriate fund structure for you?
- How do your investment strategy, investor base and target asset classes factor into the decision?
- Costs, timeframes, return potentials & exit strategies
- Negotiating management and performance fees
- Tax considerations
- Building essential operational infrastructure
- Compliance/governance/fund administration
- Committing to ESG
- Targeting distressed real estate: why now?