Michael Berman is the former CFO of two leading REITs, Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc. and General Growth Properties, Inc., where he built deep real estate transactional expertise, and was instrumental in evaluating strategic alternatives processes. Mr. Berman is the current chair of the audit committee of Brixmor Property Group Inc.
Mr. Berman has more than 30 years of combined experience in the real estate and financial industries. Mr. Berman joined General Growth Properties (“GGP”) in December of 2011 as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President and retired from the company in 2018. He was responsible for GGP’s capital markets, finance, accounting, tax, technology and external communications functions. Under his leadership GGP received numerous awards in the area of investor relations and returned to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index (“S&P 500”).
Prior to his role as CFO of GGP, Mr. Berman served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Equity LifeStyle Properties (formerly Manufactured Home Communities) from September 2003 until November 2011. Equity Lifestyle Properties owns and operates one of the largest residential real estate networks in the United States including approximately 200 manufactured communities and approximately 200 RV resorts and marinas containing over 150,000 sites. Mr. Berman joined the company as it was undergoing a large debt recapitalization used to fund its growth into the RV segment. Equity Lifestyle Properties has been one of the most successful REIT IPOs in the industry’s history.
Mr. Berman was in the investment banking department at Merrill Lynch & Co. from 1989 until 1994 and again from 1995 until 2002. During his time at Merrill Lynch he participated in numerous capital market (equity and debt) and advisory transactions including leading the initial public offerings of Equity Lifestyle Properties, Equity Residential Properties, Vornado, Inc. and Equity Office Properties. EQR, VNO AND EOP are all current or former members of the S&P 500. He was recognized by Institutional Investor for two Deal of the Year transactions: the initial public offering of Equity Office Properties and the acquisition of Equitable Real Estate Investment Management by Lend Lease.