Greg is responsible for sourcing all new business opportunities in the Midwest markets including value-added commercial mortgages, note purchase loans, mezzanine loans, equity investments, and advisory engagements.

Greg has more than 26 years of commercial real estate finance, acquisition, loan origination and securitization, mortgage banking, underwriting, analysis, and investment experience. Over his career, Mr. Cazel has been responsible for closing in excess of $4.5 billion of commercial real estate loans including fixed-rate, floating-rate, and mezzanine financings throughout the United States.

Prior to joining A10 Capital, Mr. Cazel served as Midwest Regional Director for a Jones Lang LaSalle and Real Estate Disposition (REDC) joint venture. The joint venture was responsible for selling residential, commercial, multi-family, hospitality properties and land, as well as performing and non-performing notes and loan pools, via REDC’s proprietary online auction platform. Previously, Mr. Cazel was an Executive Director with Dexia Real Estate Capital Markets Company, a Division of Dexia Bank, a Belgium-based financial institution, where he was responsible for establishing the Chicago office and managing the Midwest presence for the CMBS loan program. At Dexia, he was a Senior Loan Originator responsible for all activities related to the origination, underwriting, closing and securitization of commercial real estate loans.

Prior to opening the Dexia office, Mr. Cazel spent nine years from 1998-2007 at JP Morgan Chase as a Vice President where he ran one of two loan production teams covering the Midwest territory. With a team of junior producers, loan production assistants, in-house underwriters, and closers, he closed nearly $3.7 billion in permanent, floating, and mezzanine loans in that nine-year period, representing the highest loan production volume in the country for JPM over that period. Averaging over $400 million in annual volume, he was ranked #1 nationally in the JPM branch office system in 2005 and 2006 in terms of both total loan volume closed and revenue generated from securitization of the loans. In 2006, Mr. Cazel was awarded the JP Morgan “Billionaire Producers Club” award for becoming the first field producer to originate over $1 billion in loan production in a calendar year.

Before moving to JPM, Mr. Cazel opened the Chicago loan originations office for Washington Capital DUS, Inc., for a Washington, DC based Fannie Mae DUS lender. As a Vice President at WCD from 1993-1998, he was responsible for all phases of DUS loan origination, as well as hiring, training a support staff and running the Chicago office. This was a combined lending / mortgage banking role, with clients including both mortgage bankers and direct borrowers throughout the Midwest. While at WCD, he originated over $400 million of DUS loans, including tax-exempt bond transactions, generating over $4.5 million in loan fees, net of servicing revenue. From 1985-1992, Mr. Cazel had a variety of titles and job responsibilities while employed by the Chicago-based mortgage banking firm of Republic Realty (later GMAC Commercial Mortgage and now Berkadia Mortgage). He began as an assistant and spent the first five years there working with the top mortgage banker in the origination, underwriting and closing of over 90 loan transactions totaling in excess of $500 million and generating in excess of $5.0 million in fees for the company, net of servicing revenue. He was part of a two-person production team that ranked #1 nationally in loan production volume internally every year from 1986-1991. His last 2 years at Republic he was promoted to run the Fannie Mae DUS apartment lending functions for the company’s eleven regional branch offices, including working with the mortgage bankers in the field offices, overseeing the negotiating of loan applications, underwriting, financial/credit analysis, review of technical reports, and committee approval presentations and closings. He assisted the branch offices in closing over $350 million in FNMA DUS loans in that time period.

Mr. Cazel holds a BA in Finance with a concentration in Real Estate and Accounting from the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, IL. He is also a former President of Rho Epsilon, the Professional Real Estate Business Fraternity. While an undergraduate, he won the Illinois Real Estate Foundation’s Morgan L. Fitch Real Estate Scholarship Award in 1983, along with the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers Undergraduate Scholarship Award, also in 1983. In addition, he successfully completed the first four examinations of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraiser’s MAI program while still in school in 1984. Post graduate, he successfully completed the Dale Carnegie Sales Training Program, in 1991, earning the Dale Carnegie Super Salesman Award, and was voted Human Relations Award Winner by fellow students. He returned to Dale Carnegie in 1992 and 1993 as a guest instructor / group leader. Mr. Cazel is a member of the Tenant-in-Common Association (TICA), Illinois Mortgage Bankers Association, past member, Chicago Real Estate Council, past member, and the University of Illinois Real Estate Alumni Forum, current Director and board member, and Immediate Past President. Currently, he is on the Board of Directors and is Chairman of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of GC Net Lease REIT, Inc., a publicly registered, non-traded Real Estate Investment Trust established to purchase both sale-leasebacks directly from corporate occupiers and existing net lease assets from third parties, targeting “mission critical” office and industrial properties that are net leased to corporate tenants for long duration.