BGC Partners, Inc. ("BGC Partners" or "BGC"), a leading global brokerage company servicing the wholesale financial and property markets, today announced the appointment of Jonathan Falik as Senior Managing Director and Head of Hospitality Capital Markets for BGC Real Estate Capital Markets. Mr. Falik, who brings more than 18 years of hospitality investment banking and capital markets expertise, has been directly involved in transactions aggregating in excess of $25 billion, representing over 2,000 hotels. His appointment strengthens BGC/Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's growing roster of leading capital markets real estate professionals and further strengthens of its hospitality industry focus.
"I'm delighted to welcome Jonathan to our growing BGC Real Estate Capital Markets team," said Michael Lehrman, Global Head of Real Estate at BGC. "Jonathan has enjoyed a distinguished career in hospitality investment banking and capital markets, thanks to his deep understanding of the industry, his strong relationships with investors, operators, lenders and developers, and his premier skills and expertise in capital raising and advisory services, all of which we expect to capitalize on for the benefit of our clients and platform."
He continued: "We are committed to creating a fully integrated hospitality platform for the real estate industry. The continued expansion of our hospitality capital markets capabilities is a natural complement to the leasing, management, investment sales and other services already offered by Newmark Grubb Knight Frank."
"I am delighted to join Michael and the BGC/Newmark Grubb Knight Frank team and to leverage my vast hospitality industry experience as an agent, advisor, principal, owner, borrower, guarantor, franchisee, lender and asset manager to create and deliver value added solutions and superior transaction execution for our hospitality industry clients."
Mr. Falik's hospitality capital markets and advisory expertise offers additional depth and breadth to BGC/Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's growing suite of services within its real estate platform.
Prior to joining BGC, Mr. Falik served as Head of Cantor Fitzgerald's Lodging investment banking group where he was responsible for overseeing equity, debt, and advisory transactions for hospitality industry clients. Previously, Mr. Falik was the Founder and CEO of JF Capital Advisors, a boutique capital structure and M&A advisory firm and was the CEO of Eagle Hospitality Properties Trust, a 13 hotel private REIT. Formerly, Mr. Falik was a senior officer in the Real Estate and Lodging Investment Banking group of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. Mr. Falik will be based in New York and will report directly to Michael Lehrman, Global Head of Real Estate at BGC.
Mr. Falik received an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Economics from Rutgers College.
About BGC Partners
BGC Partners, Inc., a leading global brokerage company primarily servicing the wholesale financial and property markets, has over 7,000 employees in New York, London and dozens of cities around the world, and conducts over $200 trillion in financial transactions for customers annually. BGC offers customers over 220 products, including commercial real estate, fixed income securities, interest rate swaps, foreign exchange, equities, equity derivatives, credit derivatives, commodities, futures, and structured products.
BGC's technology helps customers determine the value of a transaction and execute transactions at the best possible price. BGC's customers include many of the world's largest banks, hedge funds, governments and investment firms. Trades are executed through BGC's brokers, or through its hybrid and fully electronic brokerage services.
BGC, named after fixed income trading innovator B. Gerald Cantor, also offers financial technology solutions, market data, and analytics through its eSpeed, BGC Trader, and BGC Market Data brands, and provides clearing, processing, and other support services. For more information, please visit www.bgcpartners.com.
About Newmark Grubb Knight Frank
A part of BGC Partners, Inc., Newmark Grubb Knight Frank is one of the largest commercial real estate service firms in the U.S. It brings together the strategic consultative approach to creating value for clients and leading position in the New York market that are hallmarks of Newmark Knight Frank; the complementary strengths of Grubb & Ellis in leasing and management, investment sales, valuation and capital markets services; and BGC's financial strength, proprietary technology, expertise in global capital markets and deep relationships with many of the world's leading financial institutions.
Newmark Grubb Knight Frank and its London-based partner Knight Frank together operate from more than 300 offices in established and emerging property markets on five continents. This major force in real estate is meeting the local and global needs of tenants, owners, investors and developers worldwide.
China’s Easing Grip on Gas Opening Door to North America Exports - Bloomberg
Chinese consumers may buy natural gas at more than five times current U.S. futures prices as the government eases control over domestic costs, opening the world’s biggest energy market to more overseas sellers.
Wholesale, or city-gate gas, in China’s Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, where the country is running a pilot program linking prices to oil, cost as much as 2.74 yuan (43 cents) a cubic meter since December, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. That’s about $12 per million British thermal units, or five times more expensive than benchmark U.S. futures in New York.
China plans to extend the pricing nationwide in two to three years, according to the official Xinhua News Agency, potentially boosting imports from North America, where Henry Hub futures contracts fell to a 10-year low in April. While China seeks to boost the use of cleaner fuels such as gas, retail price caps are discouraging energy companies from increasing supplies because they have to pay international rates and sell at a loss on the domestic market.
“The price reform helps to create an environment that supports a high cost of gas,” Gavin Thompson, a manager at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. in Beijing, said in a telephone interview May 30. “U.S. pricing will be attractive to the Chinese buyers. Looking at our view of delivered cost into east coast China and Henry Hub gas prices, U.S. Gulf Coast exports look competitive.”
Executives from the world’s biggest gas companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., OAO Gazprom and PetroChina Co. are likely to discuss the prospect of rising North American exports to Asia when they meet in Kuala Lumpur this week for the World Gas Conference. Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser last month called gas “the fuel of the future.”
U.S. LNG
The U.S. may export about 40 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas a year by 2022 as low-cost supplies from shale deposits encourage shipments to Asia, Jen Snyder, a Boston-based analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said May 22. LNG is natural gas chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 degrees Celsius), liquefying it for shipment by tanker.
U.S. exports will cost Asia buyers $9.35 per million Btu, based on a Henry Hub price of $3 and after accounting for freight rates, according to a May 29 presentation by Cheniere Energy Inc. (LNG), the Houston-based company that’s developing the nation’s largest LNG export terminal in Louisiana. That compares to $11.08 per million Btu that China paid on average in April, according to customs data.
Price Slump
Gas futures slumped to $1.91 per million Btu on the New York Mercantile Exchange on April 19, the lowest price since September 2001. The contract for July delivery was at $2.348 per million Btu today in New York.
“China will be seriously importing gas from North America as it offers potentially lower prices compared to other sources,” Neil Beveridge, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said in a telephone interview May 30. “There is a lot of interest from Asian buyers, but the question is very much a political one in terms of how much the U.S. will allow to export.”
If China’s gas pricing reform is rolled out nationwide, retail gas prices could double to as much as 5 yuan per cubic meter, from 2.5 yuan currently, Beveridge said in a May 9 report. Wellhead prices would be three times those implied by U.S. forward price curves, according to Beveridge.
Import Surge
China may purchase an additional 10 million tons of LNG a year by 2030 from overseas markets, including North America, South America and Africa, on top of a further 10 million tons from traditional sources in Asia and the Middle East, Fereidun Fesharaki, the Singapore-based chairman of Facts Global Energy, said in a report last month.
China, which aims to double gas use in five years by 2015, increased overseas purchases of LNG by 31 percent to a record 12.2 million tons last year, according to Chinese customs. Purchases may more than double to 30 million tons by 2015 and rise fourfold to 50 million tons by 2020, according to Bernstein.
The nationwide implementation of the pricing system may make gas too expensive for some industries and reduce China’s competitiveness, according to Beveridge, who forecasts the country’s prices may rise by 50 percent in the next two to three years as the government extends the trial.
Gas in Guangdong and Guangxi is linked to a benchmark price in Shanghai that’s based on the cost of imported fuel oil and liquefied petroleum gas in the city, the National Development and Reform Commission said Dec. 27. Transportation costs are added to the Shanghai price to reach the final price for the regions, according to NDRC.
Political Sensitivity
While market prices in China may be attractive to overseas suppliers, exporting low-cost fuel to a strategic competitor may be politically sensitive for the U.S., said Thompson at Wood Mackenzie. China may also view U.S. LNG supplies as relatively risky because export terminals require government approval, creating uncertainty, he said.
While future gas demand will be met with supplies from shale reserves, U.S. exports are likely to remain limited to keep prices from declining, according to Christophe de Margerie, chief executive of Total SA, Europe’s third-largest energy company. De Margerie will be in Kuala Lumpur this week.
Consideration of licenses to export gas from the U.S. will have to wait until at least the third quarter, when a study is completed after a delay of several months, according to the U.S. Energy Department. The assessments were initiated after complaints from some U.S. lawmakers, who said sales overseas might increase prices at home.
To contact the reporters on this story: Winnie Zhu in Singapore at wzhu4@bloomberg.net; Dinakar Sethuraman in New Delhi at dinakar@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net
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