McNally Capital Appoints Strategic Advisor to Enhance Opportunity Zone Investment Activity and Deployment of “Direct Family Capital”

  • Joseph Cahoon added as experienced Real Estate Strategic Advisor

  • Family Offices are actively vetting potential investments and seeking capital for opportunities situated within Designated Opportunity Zones

  • Frank McGrew to lead Opportunity Zone initiatives for McNally Capital

November 27, 2018 01:30 PM Eastern Standard Time

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)— McNally Capital (“McNally”), a leading provider of direct family capital through its Direct Investing and Merchant Banking services, has added real estate expert Joseph Cahoon as Strategic Advisor, as the firm works to actively source Opportunity Zone (“OZ”) investment opportunities for its growing network of family offices. With favorable tax benefits designed for long-term oriented capital, McNally believes that OZ investment opportunities can provide family offices with tax efficient returns on investment while assisting low-income community redevelopment efforts. In partnership with Joseph Cahoon, the firm has closely followed and analyzed evolving Treasury legislation around OZs and has begun actively courting partnerships with national commercial real estate developers and business operators.

Established by Congress as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Opportunity Zones are a new economic development program to encourage long-term investments in low-income areas, as determined by US Census data. States were able to designate 25% of eligible census tracts as Opportunity Zones representing over 8,700 distinct areas across the country for favorable investment. Importantly, Opportunity Zones enable investors to put realized capital gains to work in low-income and rural communities while experiencing multi-layered incentives, including deferring tax due on capital gains for up to seven years. Maximum benefits accrue to those investors with a long-term holding horizon of 10 years or longer.

Joseph Cahoon has over 20 years of experience as a real estate investor, developer and educator. He currently serves as the Director of the Folsom Institute for Real Estate at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and as a Senior Advisor to HR&A Advisors, a leading national real estate and economic development consulting firm. Joseph commented, “I am pleased to join the team at McNally and look forward to continuing my extensive work helping family offices to more efficiently invest in commercial real estate opportunities. In particular, I am excited that McNally shares my vision for how to transform the approach families take when investing in OZ areas.”

Ward McNally, Managing Partner of McNally Capital, expressed, “Having formed our firm over 10 years ago to assist family offices to make and manage their private investments, I am proud to lead a team that strives to remain at the forefront of innovation and collaboration among our large and diverse network of family offices that has grown to over 800 across the US and abroad. Opportunity Zones require long-term patient capital from investors who also have the desire to make a significant social impact around the country. These investor characteristics, combined with the enhanced tax benefits of the OZ legislation, make this strategy appealing for our family office co-investors. We are pleased to partner with Joseph Cahoon and devote our resources to help our family office network capitalize on these opportunities while strengthening low-income communities across the US.”

McNally Capital is pursuing a two-pronged OZ strategy to harness and leverage the firm’s robust and deep family office network to bridge the gap between private sector investment and urban development while capitalizing on the benefits of the OZ investment framework. First, McNally is working to identify those family offices who have either recently realized capital gains or intend to do so in order to participate within 180-day reinvestment periods as designated by OZ regulations. Second, McNally is sourcing and screening real estate and operating company investments using a proprietary investment framework. In summary, McNally Capital has created a proprietary “Opportunity Zone Atlas” to facilitate access, screening and capital alignment. We believe that family offices are poised to actively participate in OZ capital formation and to facilitate the development and welfare of under-developed urban and rural areas with attractive double bottom-line investments that provide investors with favorable “social impact” and appealing financial returns.

According to Frank McGrew, Managing Partner at McNally Capital, “We are pleased to have received a strong following of support since pursuing Opportunity Zones earlier this year and have come to understand just how much potential they offer for new investments in real estate and operating companies as designated according to Treasury regulations. Our strategy is driven by a focused, talented and professional team governed by an articulate investment committee process designed to highlight specific census tracts and then identify the most attractive investments possible within those designated zones. In addition, our investments are intended to be made alongside local partners bringing long-term and deeply-rooted community and political relationships.”

McNally has published several informational publications related to Opportunity Zones and intends to maintain its early leadership status to help educate family offices on the unique benefits of Opportunity Zones. Interested parties should contact the firm for further information or visit https://www.mcnallycapital.com/opportunity-zones.

About McNally Capital

Formed by the McNally family, who owned and operated Rand McNally & Company, McNally Capital is dedicated to upholding a 140+ year legacy as a family-owned and operated company. Today, McNally Capital is focused exclusively on Direct Family Capital through Direct Investing and Merchant Banking services. With an emphasis on partnership, we harness the financial, intellectual, and human capital of our family office ecosystem to build value for family office investors, management teams and operating companies. We maintain a private network of over 800 family offices with whom we collaborate to make and manage direct investments. For more information, please visit: http://www.mcnallycapital.com.

About Joseph Cahoon

Joseph Cahoon has over 20 years of experience as an investor, developer and educator in the Real Estate Industry. Joseph joined the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business in January 2014 as the director of the Folsom Institute for Real Estate. In his role with the Folsom Institute, Cahoon is responsible for leading the Institute's initiatives in academics, research and outreach to the real estate industry to enhance the institute's and students' relationships with alumni and other industry leaders nationally. In addition to his role with the Folsom Institute, Joseph is a Professor of Practice in the Cox School and teaches real estate finance courses for both MBAs and BBAs. He also currently serves as a Senior Advisor to HR&A Advisors, a leading real estate and economic development consulting firm in Dallas, TX. Previously, from 2009 to 2014, Cahoon was the managing director of the Real Estate Finance and Investment Center in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. Prior to joining UT Austin, Cahoon was with Gables Residential in Dallas, Texas, and was responsible for sourcing and underwriting multifamily and mixed-use acquisition and development opportunities in Dallas. Before joining Gables in 2006, he was a partner with Champion Partners in Dallas where he focused on value-add office investments. Prior to attending business school in 2003, Cahoon was a project manager with Century Development in Houston, Texas.