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Being tied to one city has never been In-Rel Properties’ CEO Mukang Cho’s M.O. Born in South Korea, he lived in eight countries while growing up due to the career of his father, Key-sung Cho, a diplomat who served as the South Korean ambassador to Guatemala, Peru and Argentina. The family’s immersion into Latin America was so thorough that Mukang Cho’s first language wasn’t Korean – it was Spanish.
Since coming to the U.S. to attend Cornell University followed by Harvard Law, he’s translated an interest in architecture, passion for business and his top shelf legal education into a successful real estate career. Cho joined the privately held In-Rel Properties in 2010, and has been instrumental in doubling the commercial firm’s portfolio, primarily through the acquisition of distressed assets.
“With the broader real estate and capital markets improving, we are seeing fewer acquisition opportunities that come with a significant pricing dislocation, but they do exist,” Cho noted. The narrowing window for such opportunities is due mainly to strengthening retail and office markets around the country, including in Florida, where In-Rel is based. Founded by Charles Stein and Dennis Udwin in 1985, In-Rel now manages 6 million square feet of office and retail property in seven states.
Cho explains that the company focuses not on markets, but on individual assets, when making purchasing decisions.
“We really start with the asset itself, and try to create a thesis that this is an asset we want to own and operate. Once we make that determination, at the asset level, then we get comfortable with the submarket and market that the property is in. Unlike a lot of companies that take more of a top down approach, first identifying where they want to be, we take the inverse approach.”
Subsequent investment in the targeted assets can make a big difference in leasing performance, as has been the case with Rivergate Tower in Tampa, a building that In-Rel bought in 2011. Occupancy is up 20 percent since In-Rel’s purchase and capital improvements.
Improving quality of life is a focus in Cho’s personal life as well as professionally. He contributes time, fundraising assistance and resources to his father’s global non-profit, which has built 19 medical facilities in impoverished countries around the world.
“It means everything to me,” he said of the Medical Peace Foundation, which is supported with government partnerships in each nation where the facilities are located.
“The mission is to provide basic health care to men, women and children who might be afflicted and face dire consequences for a condition that, for a similarly situated person in a developed country, would not be an issue.”
Read more of our interview with Mukang Cho on Commercial Property Executive.
