C&W’s Rufrano Top Choice for ARCP CEO

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Glenn Rufrano

Evidently it’s time for Glenn Rufrano to step to the top of the CRE news cycle again. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that “according to people familiar with the search process,” Rufrano is currently regarded as “the lone finalist” for the position of CEO at American Realty Capital Properties Inc.

That position, of course, was vacated by the mid-December departure of Nicholas Schorsch, ARCP’s high-flying CEO & chairman, following allegations of substantial accounting errors and a subsequent cover-up. Since then, William Stanley, an ARCP independent director, has been holding down both posts on an interim basis.

Though it is not certain that Rufrano, 64, who was Cushman & Wakefield’s CEO till mid-2013, will be ARCP’s next top exec, a quick recap of Rufrano’s career gives a sense why ARCP’s board might indeed have their sights set on him.

To begin more or less at the beginning, Rufrano holds a bachelor’s in business administration from Rutgers University and a master’s in real estate and management from Florida International University.

After starting out with Landauer Associates, in 1983, Rufrano co-founded, with the late Jeremiah (Jerry) O’Connor, a diversified real estate investment firm that was then called The O’Connor Group. Rufrano was a partner and the president/COO there till March 2000. Concurrently, he was also co-chairman of The Peabody Group, which was sponsored jointly with J.P. Morgan & Co.

Rufrano was then CEO and a director of New Plan Excel Realty Trust Inc. from 2000 until 2007, when it was acquired by Australia’s Centro Properties Group. He was promptly appointed CEO of Centro Properties Group U.S., where he was responsible for the management, leasing, development and redevelopment of Centro Properties Group’s U.S. portfolio.

Most famously, perhaps, Rufrano moved on to become the CEO & president of Cushman & Wakefield from March 2010 till a sudden departure in June 2013.

Soon after leaving Cushman, however, Rufrano in November 2013 was welcomed back as CEO and chairman of O’Connor Capital Partners, the former O’Connor Group. His co-founder, Jerry O’Connor, had died in 2010, after which Bill O’Connor had been serving as both president and COO.

Along the way, Rufrano has been on the boards of Trizec Properties Inc., Criimi Mae Inc., General Growth Properties and Ventas. He is also a trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers, and in January of this year, he became an independent director of Columbia Property Trust Inc., of Atlanta.

Look for that résumé to get even longer soon.