This week, I sat down with Emily McMillen, Vice President of Portfolio Management for LEM Capital, to learn more about how her firm is leveraging Pereview as their asset management solution.
First, a little about LEM Capital. Based in Philadelphia, LEM Capital is a real estate private equity firm with an 18-year track record focused on protecting investors’ downside and building portfolios to help deliver dependable current cash flow and equity upside through all points in the economic cycle.
Multifamily experts, LEM acquires well-located suburban apartment properties adding value and helping to increase rents through physical upgrades and the implementation of better management practices. Since 2002, LEM has raised over $1.3 billion in investor commitments and has acquired over 23,000 value-add apartment units since 2011.
Daryl Pitts: Emily, thank you for sitting down to chat with me. I want to start by asking how business has changed at LEM Capital since you adopted Pereview as your asset management platform.
Emily McMillen: Well, we’ve acquired 99 value-add properties to date. So, before Pereview, that meant we essentially had 99 different models we would have to pull data from if we wanted to aggregate information across our portfolio. With Pereview that data is all in one place and we can aggregate it and slice-and-dice it however we want to with a lot more ease and efficiency – and with a lot less opportunity for error.
From the pipeline perspective, it’s really great to be able to track deals that we might have passed on to see where they ended up trading. We can enter that into the system, as well.
DP: That’s great, Emily. That leads nicely into my next question, which is, if you had to pick one specific value that Pereview is driving for LEM Capital, what would it be?
EM: I would say it’s the overall efficiency we gain from the platform. We don’t have to waste time going back to other models, and it allows us to take our analysis a step further because all the data is at our fingertips.
DP: The pandemic has made this question a little more conceptual, but pre-or-post pandemic, what are some of your favorite industry-related events to participate in?
EM: There’s an organization called Kayo that focuses on women in the industry. LEM has been involved with a few of their virtual conferences recently. It’s always good to see familiar faces across the industry, even if it’s via Zoom.
DP: I have to ask everyone we sit down with this question: What’s your favorite sports team?
EM: Well, if you asked any of my colleagues, they’d probably say the Eagles. But I’m not from the Philadelphia area, so my favorite team is my alma mater the North Carolina Tar Heels. They had a disappointing showing in the NCAA tournament this year, but maybe next year.
DP: It stands to reason that the year they have a pretty good football team, that they would not have the greatest basketball season. But like you said, maybe next year. Last question! As you look back at the Pereview implementation and onboarding process, any funny memories or stories that come to mind?
EM: Ha! Well, we still sometimes laugh because some of the sample data in Pereview is very Dallas Cowboys-centric. Our team is mostly Eagles fans, of course … so it wasn’t their favorite data to interact with!
DP: Good to know that the Dallas/Philly rivalry is still going strong! That’s great, Emily. Thank you so much for sitting down to chat, and for being a valued Pereview client.
