Zoe Hughes

Jon Tanaka has been appointed managing director and head of Japan in charge of Angelo Gordon’s real estate activities in the country.

Colony Financial and private equity real estate funds managed by the Los Angeles-based firm have provided a first mortgage loan to homebuilder William Lyons Homes.

Jeff Giller has now left the San Francisco-based secondaries shop after four years with the firm.

Jacqueline Brady, Margaret Blakely, Brent Morris and five others have joined Urdang as part of the firm’s push into real estate debt. The team will help advise two multi-billion dollar Capmark funds.

Together with private equity firm MBH Enterprises, Scott Roth, Patti Unti and Jimmy Parsley have created Ventras and marked their first deal by buying 12 management contracts from Capmark.

The struggling Central European property firm, Orco Property Group, has reportedly hired UBS bank to help find potential new investors. Colony is still in talks to acquire a stake in the group after Orco filed for bankruptcy protection.

Despite Prudential Real Estate Investors' global heft, chief executive officer Allen Smith believes the firm is as nimble, and flexible, as any boutique operation. By Zoe Hughes

Starwood Capital, Fortress, DE Shaw and Five Mile have offered $3.5bn for the hotel group’s $4.1bn first mortgage, according to the WSJ.

After delaying the pricing of their IPOs one day, the two fund managers said they now expected to raise just $250m and $200m respectively – compared to Colony’s original target of $500m and Apollo’s $600m.

The troubled private equity real estate firm has lost control of 120 Howard Street to mezzanine note holder, Prudential Real Estate Investors. PREI financed $23.2m in mezzanine loans at the time of the deal in May 2007.