Mesa West Capital Expands Geographic Footprint to New York

In an effort to broaden its geographic diversity on a selective basis, Los Angeles-based ""Mesa West Capital"":http://www.mesawestcapital.com/ has

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opened a new office in New York. The privately-held commercial real estate portfolio lender provides first-mortgage loans on office, industrial, retail, flagged hotels, and multifamily assets primarily in the Western United States, and says it has over $1 billion to deploy in 2010.

Co-CEO Mark Zytko said having a location in New York, which marks the first regional office for the company, will help Mesa West better serve its East Coast-based clients. The newly-opened office will be led by Raphael Fishbach, who was recently hired as director.

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""Typically, a portion of our investments have been allocated outside the Western United States,"" Zytko said. ""Mesa West will continue its Western focus, but having Raphael in New York provides a better foothold to consider East Coast properties. Importantly, while our deals are generally located in the West, many of our borrower and mortgage broker relationships are based in and around New York, and we believe having an office here is a logical next step in the growth of our Company.""

Fishbach comes to Mesa West from his position of director at ""Ramius LLC"":http://www.ramius.com/, a multi-billion dollar asset management firm based in New York City. During his three years at Ramius, Fishbach was responsible for deal sourcing, origination and underwriting, negotiation of acquisitions, joint ventures, financings, and asset management, and he was involved in transactions valued in excess of $500 million.

Prior to this, Fishbach was VP in the real estate merchant banking group of ""Wells Fargo Bank"":https://www.wellsfargo.com/ in its Los Angeles and New York offices. In his six years with the bank, he was directly responsible for more than $1 billion of debt originations of projects located throughout the United States.