Fred Copeman Joins Reznick Group
By Caitlin Jones
3 min read
Tax Credit Advisor, February 2010: Fred Copeman, formerly a partner with Ernst & Young LLP, has joined the Reznick Group as a Principal in the firm’s national real estate consulting practice. Based in Boston, he will lead the firm’s new Tax Credit Investor Services practice, which will provide due diligence and other advisory services to institutional investors in tax credit projects.
Reznick Group is a national accounting, tax, and business advisory services firm.
Copeman is a nationally recognized expert in the affordable housing industry, with particular expertise in federal low-income housing, historic rehabilitation, and renewable energy tax credits.
During his 23 years at Ernst & Young, Copeman founded and ran that firm “˜s Tax Credit Advisory Services unit, providing services to more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies and 20 of the top 25 commercial banks in the U.S.
At Ernst & Young, he co-authored five seminal studies that analyzed the performance of housing credit investments, based on data collected from syndicators and investors. These performance studies, which found that LIHTC properties have a very low foreclosure rate, prompted a favorable change by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in the required treatment of housing credit investments by life insurance companies.
Copeman also prepared an independent report on the LIHTC program in 1996 for the National Council of State Housing Agencies, and has authored other reports and participated in various policy, industry, and legislative initiatives that have enhanced the housing credit.
In an interview, Copeman said the new stand-alone business unit at Reznick Group will exclusively serve corporate investors. “It “˜s focused on them from the perspective of providing investment due diligence services, advocacy on critical industry matters, and other consulting services designed to meet their business needs as corporate investors.”
He reported that Reznick Group will prepare a new study of the performance of LIHTC projects for calendar year 2009 that will also include detailed operating expense data. In addition, he said, “I “˜m going to try to launch a study of the relationship between the investment test of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), both on those housing credit projects that are being financed in this market, and, in particular, on those that simply cannot attract equity capital.”
Copeman, who will be collecting data for the second study, said the current CRA rules have caused a shortfall of capital for housing credit projects located in certain areas (rural and elsewhere) that are outside the CRA “footprint” of the major national bank investors. “The objective of this second study is to go out and find the proof that that is happening and try to bring about a change in those rules.”
Deborah VanAmerongen, Commissioner of the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), will join the law firm of Nixon Peabody LLP, effective February 1, in its New York City office. She will work with attorneys in the firm’s Affordable Housing practice to provide advice to developers, owners, and managers of affordable housing, as well as their financing partners, in the preservation and production of affordable housing nationwide. Brian Lawlor has been named Acting Commissioner of DHCR.
Andrew I. Crossed has been made a partner and executive vice president of Conifer Realty, an affordable housing developer and management company based in Rochester, N.Y.
Eileen Hawes has been named Vice President of Finance for The Michaels Organization, a fully integrated, full-service residential real estate organization based in Marlton, N.J. She previously had a 30-year career at the New Jersey Housing Finance Agency, most recently serving as the agency’s chief financial officer.
