Lobo Capital & Partners

About the firm

Capital with an operator's judgement.

Lobo Capital & Partners was formed by Derek Lobo and Joshua Hoo. Derek has spent four decades in the apartment business as a broker, advisor and author, and has placed private capital with developers on both sides of the border. Between them the two have structured and raised more than $400 million of private capital for real estate development, and Joshua runs a registered exempt market dealer and a licensed brokerage.

The firm exists to source institutional-grade rental housing investments for a select circle of ultra-high-net-worth families and institutions, and to place our own capital beside theirs. Derek secures the developer, the site and the terms through relationships built over four decades. Joshua underwrites and structures each investment to the standard a pension fund or life insurer would expect, documents it accordingly, and manages it through the full hold. We present only the opportunities we would invest in ourselves, and we report to our investors with the rigour we would expect in their place.

40years in the apartment business

$400M+private capital raised across the partners' careers

60+development projects financed

1,000+investor households served

Figures reflect the founding partners' careers before Lobo Capital & Partners, at Rock Advisors Inc. and Greybrook Realty Partners respectively.

Our business

Rental housing, held for the long term.

We invest in one asset class and know it well. Within rental housing we work in three ways.

Development partnerships

We co-invest with experienced apartment developers in Canada and the United States, taking a limited-partner or co-general-partner position in new rental communities. The developer builds and operates. We bring the equity, the structure and the oversight, and we stay in the deal until it is stabilised and refinanced.

Purpose-built rental

Low-rise and mid-rise rental in Ontario, garden-style communities in the US Midwest, and larger sites delivered in phases. Buildings are planned to be held, with CMHC and agency take-out financing in mind from the first drawing, so that the refinancing returns most of the equity and the income continues.

Special situations

Rental projects that have stalled or run short of capital, and need completion funding, a new structure or a new partner. We price these on the asset and the discount, not on the original plan, and we put our own structuring work into making them whole.

Partners

Founding partners

Derek Lobo

Founding Partner

Derek has worked exclusively in the apartment business since 1986. He is the founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rock Advisors Inc., Brokerage, the Burlington, Ontario firm he built into Canada's specialist advisor on purpose-built rental and student housing, and its Broker of Record.

Over four decades he has brokered some of the country's largest apartment transactions, advised developers, pension funds, REITs and governments on what to build and how to position it, and raised private capital for apartment developers in Canada and the United States, including Milhaus and Denton Floyd. In 2005 he took a sabbatical from Rock to serve as Vice-President, Sales and Marketing at CAPREIT, and he has since worked with Starlight on its US multi-family platform.

Derek continues to lead Rock Advisors as its Chief Executive Officer. He is the founder of the National Apartment Council, which represents Canada's private apartment developers, and serves as its Growth and Revenue Officer. He is the author of twenty-one books on apartment development and investment, founded Apartment University and The Self Funding House, and is a regular speaker at the major real estate and investment conferences in North America.

Forty years in rental housing Contact Derek

Joshua Hoo

Founding Partner

Joshua has spent more than 25 years in real estate development, private equity and capital markets in Canada, New Zealand and Asia. For eleven years he was with Greybrook Realty Partners, one of Canada's largest real estate private equity firms, latterly as Executive Director, Private Capital Markets, where he raised more than $300 million across more than 60 development projects for roughly 1,000 investor households.

Before that he ran his family's development group in New Zealand through fifteen projects and some 800 homes and sections, leading every stage from feasibility and land acquisition to construction, marketing and closing. He remains Group General Manager of that business.

Joshua is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Goodland Equity Partners and of Goodland Wealth Inc., an exempt market dealer registered in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Québec, where he holds the Ultimate Designated Person and Chief Compliance Officer registrations personally. He is Broker of Record of Hoo Capital Realty Inc., holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Postgraduate Diploma from the University of Auckland, and is bilingual in English and Mandarin.

Contact Joshua

Team

Capital markets, underwriting, compliance and operations.

The partners are supported by a team that covers investor relationships, independent underwriting, and the compliance and reporting that institutional capital expects.

Vincent Li

Managing Director, Capital Markets

Vincent leads investor coverage and the placement of each offering. He brings more than a decade in capital markets, investment consulting and client relationship management, and holds advanced certifications in financial advice and investment management. He works with families, family offices and institutions on portfolio construction, risk and allocation, and is responsible for the firm's investor relationships through the life of every investment.

Fran Hohol, CMC, MA

Director, Underwriting

Fran leads underwriting. A Certified Management Consultant, she spent more than 35 years in valuation and advisory with CBRE's Valuation and Advisory Services and PKF Consulting before turning to the multi-family sector in 2022 as Director of Research at Rock Advisors. Her work spans market and financial feasibility, needs assessment, economic impact analysis and strategic business planning for investment opportunities in both the public and private sectors, including public-private partnerships. She is responsible for the independent underwriting of the rent, absorption, cost and value assumptions behind every investment the firm presents.

Kanen MacLellan

Associate Vice President, Underwriting

Kanen builds and stress-tests the financial model behind each opportunity and prepares the market research that supports the firm's investment memoranda. He joined Rock Advisors in 2021 after a Bachelor of Commerce in Real Estate and Housing from the University of Guelph, and has since worked across commercial mortgage underwriting, financial modelling, feasibility analysis, property management and property tax assessment.

Sharon Cheung

Director, Compliance and Operations

Sharon runs compliance and operations. With more than twenty years in investor relations and strategic management, she built the systems behind the firm's onboarding, know-your-client, subscription and reporting workflow, and oversees the dealer compliance programme under which every offering is distributed. Her standard is that investors receive timely, accurate reporting and a responsive service throughout the hold.

Who we work with

A small number of investors. A direct relationship.

Families, family offices and institutions

We raise capital from ultra-high-net-worth families, family offices and institutional investors in Canada and abroad who want direct exposure to rental housing alongside a sponsor they can speak to. Each investment is a single, identified project or a defined portfolio, not a blind pool.

Minimum commitments apply. Every subscription is made through a registered exempt market dealer under confidential offering documents, and reported on quarterly.

Direct interests in identified rental projects
Partners co-invest in every offering
Quarterly reporting, audited annually
Canadian and US dollar structures

For investors

Developers and landowners

If you have an apartment site or a rental project that needs an equity partner, a completion partner or a new structure, we would like to see it. We look for experienced sponsors, locations where rental demand is proven, and projects that can be financed through CMHC or an agency take-out once stabilised.

Purpose-built rental sites in Ontario and the US Midwest
Phased or multi-building rental communities
Stalled or under-capitalised rental projects

Contact

Speak with a partner.

Enquiries are read by Derek and Joshua personally. Tell us briefly who you are and what you would like to discuss, and one of us will reply within two business days.

Email: info@lobocp.com
Offices: Toronto and Burlington, Ontario

LOBO