Sungmok Ryu/JB Park

Sungmok Ryu - Vice President
JB Park - Associate
Global Commercial Real Estate Group, Lehman Brothers

  • PRE year: 2001 (Sungmok Ryu), 2004 (JB Park)
  • Concentration: Real Estate Finance and Investment
  • Hometown: Seoul, Korea

Looking back:

We are two alumni that benefited from the Cornell real estate network in landing our positions in the same office with Lehman Brothers following graduation. At the time we joined Cornell’s program, our home country had experienced the Asian financial crisis, and the real estate industry was transitioning a more quantified approach. The program provided us with the ideal learning environment with a curriculum that offers abundant performance-learning opportunities and professors who have professional experience in real estate.
Outside the classroom, Ithaca’s natural beauty gave us a pleasurable quality of life quite unlike that of the big city environment that we were used to. Spending time with our families in the park, golfing, and studying at the library are memories we will treasure for the rest of our lives.

Career:

Sungmok Ryu

I gained the opportunity to work with Lehman Brothers through a presentation I delivered on the Korean real estate market at the Annual Cornell Real Estate Conference. Since 2001, I have been acting as an acquisition officer in Lehman Brother’s Global Commercial Real Estate Group in Seoul working on a variety of projects related to hard asset acquisition, loan origination, and structured products.
The real estate market in Korea has increasingly shown trends similar to that of the global market, and cap rates have been compressed down to 5%. Competing with strong local banks and security companies, I have focused on niche markets where Lehman Brothers can utilize past experiences in other regions such as mezzanine financing and acquisition loans.
Probing unexplored areas, I analyze risks to find where the firm will stand in the worst case scenario. I believe that the analytical and detailed mindset that I’ve acquired at Cornell provided me with the ability to conduct thorough due diligence and finally close the transaction.

JB Park

After completing the program, I spent two years at Morgan Stanley focusing on asset management and acquisition of hard assets such as offices, hotels and resorts in Asia. Most of the acquisitions were done through a bid process, and I felt a sense of accomplishment when selected as the preferred bidder after much hard work and preparation. Working on the asset management of a variety of hard assets was also a valuable experience. 
In my current role as an associate in the acquisition team at Lehman Brothers, I am actively involved in the valuation, underwriting and documentation of new deals. I enjoy working closely with Sungmok, who is both my direct boss and a Cornell alumnus. Cornell MPSRE’s Korean alumni are present in almost all facets of the Korean real estate industry.  The support and pride that comes from being part of the extensive network is a unique benefit of the program.