Brownfields Capital Appoints COO

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DENVER-Brownfields Capital has hired Wall Street veteran James M. Harasimowicz as president and chief operating officer. The company is a specialty commercial real estate lender and investment management firm with a patented process and financial instrument for financing the remediation and redevelopment of brownfield properties.

With more than 20 years of capital-raising and merger and acquisition advisory experience, Harasimowicz joins Brownfields Capital from Merrill Lynch where he served as co-head of the Depository Institutions Group. At Merrill Lynch, Salomon Brothers and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc., Harasimowicz negotiated several major bank mergers and acquisitions, structured and syndicated highly leveraged acquisition financings, developed several capital instruments for financial institutions and supported the creation of several start-up banking, specialty finance and real estate companies.

“Brownfields Capital has created a financial process and instrument that for the first time enables large-scale investment in brownfields with limited risks,” says Cheryl Hoffman, founder and CEO of Brownfields Capital. “As a result, we believe the brownfield market will move from a niche market into an industry. Jim, with his vast Wall Street experience and knowledge, will serve as a driving force in accelerating Brownfields Capital’s business and will advance the virtually untapped brownfields industry that is ripe for expansion.”

Brownfields Capital has a patented process and a financial instrument, the Brownfield Value Contract which insulates institutional investors from the reach of environmental law and simultaneously provides owners or prospective owners of environmentally challenged land with a fully financed capital structure and business plan. “When you consider the magnitude of the brownfield market, combined with an instrument that can attract large-scale investment, the opportunity is immense,” says Harasimowicz.