Ross Pfautz spent the early years of his real estate career with Kenneth Leventhal & Company when it was renowned as the top real estate consulting firm in the United States. He created sophisticated forecasting models for large-scale real estate development and groundbreaking work in exacting quantification of tax benefits and the discovery of unique ways to exploit formation/dissolution and off-shore entity strategies.
Ross left KL&Co to help found Argus Dominion and syndicate interests in office, retail and mobile home parks in So Cal and Metro Phoenix. His first shopping center deal was anchored by a 110,971 sf Smitty’s that Argus bought at Bell and I-17 in Metro Phoenix.
Ross left Argus to underwrite the billion-dollar expansion of the 1.8 million sf Fluor World Headquarters for Trammell Crow Company. Park Place was the largest deal that TCC had ever done at that time. The expansion plan included high rise office, retail, and hotels but alternate plans included a regional mall and a sports arena for basketball. That TCC division ultimately developed a few million square feet of office, industrial and retail shopping centers outside Park Place and picked up the Riverside Region. His experience in reorganizations and portfolio acquisitions were critical in the buyout underwriting of venture partnership interests in 14.9 million sf of office, industrial and retail projects TCC had developed in the LA Region over 25 years.
BVP Advisors was formed after TCC to structure workouts, underwrite RTC distressed loan portfolios and to acquire distressed properties during the early 90’s financial crisis. Workouts included a $250 million portfolio of shopping centers, several large-scale residential land developments, and an international property portfolio. Ross was subcontracted to structure and execute underwriting for the largest assets in $100 million to $2 billion non-performing loan pools awarded to Peat Markwick and Price Waterhouse by the RTC.
Late in 1996, Ross rejoined TCC to execute venture deals in value-added retail in Southern CA. Prospects for lucrative equity participation waned when TCC went public and lead Ross to found BVP Investments in January 2001. BVP acquired value-added retail projects with private equity capital all over California and Metro Phoenix, acquired and rezoned land, and provided expert witness testimony for legal disputes.
Over his career, Ross successively sought and obtained licensures including CPA, Real Estate Brokerage and Appraisal.