Since leaving the company his grandfather founded, former Motorola CEO Christopher Galvin has busied himself with his real estate private-equity firm, Harrison Street Real Estate Capital, which specializes in self-storage, medical offices and student housing.
 
Galvin, 59, left Motorola in 2004 and founded Chicago-based HSRE with his younger brother, Michael Galvin, and Christopher Merrill. Since then, the company has assembled a real-estate portfolio worth $1.8 billion. Even in a tight economy, the company is still making deals, in part due to $250 million in lender financing it has obtained since September.
 
Last week, HSRE announced a joint venture with Extra Space Storage Inc. valued at $291 million. The company will have an 80 percent ownership interest in the venture, which is expected to close by the end of the year.
 
According to Merrill, when the joint venture closes, HSRE will be the seventh largest owner of self-storage properties in the United States, ranked by square footage.
 
Source: Wall Street Journal, Deal Makers Put Hopes for Success in Storage

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