Cameron Sawyer, CEO of Sawyer & Co., seeks financing for a shopping center he is developing in Moscow. The case describes the opportunities and challenges of doing development in Russia.

Anne Shea, assistant vice president at the Curators' Fund (The Fund), is responsible for investing roughly $80 million in real-estate assets. Less than three years ago, Anne invested $40 million into a commingled fund run by AMB Institutional Realty Advisors, Inc., a leading pension fund advisor and asset manager. She had been pleased with The Fund's relationship with AMB; investing with AMB provided a cost-effective, value-added means for The Fund to directly own property. Recently, AMB proposed to consolidate all the properties under its management into a REIT and to take the new REIT public. Anne faces a decision: consent to the roll-up by exchanging her shares in the commingled fund for shares in the REIT, or sever ties with AMB by liquidating her position in the commingled fund at a price equal to the fair market value of the assets before the roll-up and public offering. In addition to the focus on REITs, qualitative issues in the case include the prevalence of conflicts-of-interest in most aspects of the highly fragmented real estate industry. The mechanics of a consolidation, the valuation of a management business, and the concept of "franchise value" are also addressed.

On October 23, 1998, Bud Lake leafed through his files on property markets in Asia. Lake was responsible for real-estate investments at an aggressive and eclectic investment fund with total assets of $1.5 billion--up from $400 million at its start in 1994. As the fund grew, Lake found himself scrambling to deploy his allotted 25% into real estate. For several months, he had been finding it difficult to buy U.S. properties. Recently, Lake had invested $30 million in a European "vulture fund," his first foray outside of the U.S. property market. Now Lake was taking a hard look at Asia, just as the lure of collapsing property values and $600 to $800 billion of troubled real-estate loans in the region was leading to unprecedented interest by U.S. real-estate firms. In a moment, he would hear a presentation from Jack Wong and Jason Biller, young entrepreneurs who were looking for a $25 million investment to get their new fund, Asia Property Ltd., off the ground. In addition, Lake has explored other options, such as buying the stock of a publicly traded Asian real-estate company.