PRP Real Assets hires Cole Cook for multifamily acquisitions

PRP Real Assets has hired Cole Cook as director of multifamily acquisitions, IREI reported. Cook, who has spent more than nine years in apartment investing, will be based in New York and will source and execute investments for PRP's expanding national multifamily platform. He has worked on more than $1 billion in multifamily transactions.

Cook arrives from Gindi Equities, where he was vice president of acquisitions and asset management and oversaw multifamily investments across the Midwest and Southeast. Earlier, he was an associate at Ashcroft Capital, working on multifamily acquisitions throughout the Sunbelt. He holds a finance degree from Ohio State, where he graduated with honors.

The appointment lands two days after PRP named Cherkes-Bishko head of capital formation, consolidating fundraising, investor relations, and marketing under one executive, as PRED reported. In a single week, PRP has added a capital-raiser and a deal-sourcer.

Of the two, the capital-formation hire may matter more. Without fresh capital, a deal-sourcer is just a network. The announcement order — fundraising first, sourcing second — suggests PRP wanted the money lined up before Cook arrived.

The hires reinforce each other because multifamily is repricing in layers. Stabilized assets still clear near benchmarks while lease-up risk is increasingly financed with preferred equity. The next repricing is likely to hit lease-up first, which means sponsors who arrive with fresh capital and an originations team already working become the natural buyers. That is the opening PRP appears to be aiming at.

PRP's bet is that Cook and Cherkes-Bishko give it exactly that position. The evidence will be the deals PRP closes over the next two quarters, and the prices it pays on lease-up assets relative to stabilized benchmarks. If the reset lands on lease-up first, Cook's sourcing network and Cherkes-Bishko's capital base are the right pieces to have built.