Client Spotlight

Draper and Kramer Inc.

By Yardi Blog Staff on Feb 4, 2019 in People

As it celebrates its 125th anniversary, Chicago-based Draper and Kramer Inc., a Yardi client, has promoted Todd Bancroft to president & CEO. Bancroft is taking the helm at the commercial real estate investment, financing and residential management company from Forrest Bailey, who decided to step down from his long-term positions.

Bancroft had served as the firm’s COO & general counsel since 2014 and has a deep background in law and real estate. Previously, he worked at Bancroft, Richman & Goldberg, a Chicago law firm he founded in 2010, and spent 13 years with Equity Marketing Services, a professional sales and marketing firm for condo development projects and condo conversions. It was there that he first formed a relationship with Draper and Kramer, partnering with them for a condo conversion way back in 1997.

In his new positions, Bancroft will be tasked with continuing Draper and Kramer’s legacy while capitalizing on new opportunities for investment and net operating income growth. In November, Draper and Kramer acquired North 680, a luxury community in Schaumburg, Ill., as part of a 1031 exchange following the company’s sale of Fieldpointe of St. Louis, a 318-unit property in Maryland Heights, Mo. In October, Draper and Kramer teamed with Edge Principal Advisors on the $131 million sale of Wheaton Center, a 758-unit community in Chicago’s suburbs, to FPA Multifamily.

What led you to working for Draper and Kramer?

Bancroft: I worked at Equity Marketing for 13 years and then the downturn was really its deathblow. There were no condominium sales, no new condominium projects, so its entire business model all but went away. So, at the beginning of 2009, I decided to open a small law firm and was targeting general real estate work as well as condo associations. A year later, we took space with Draper and Kramer as they had a bank of offices that were vacated. We were doing some work with them, but once we were invited in, that work grew. By 2012, I was named general counsel and, ultimately, went in-house as the chief operating office.

This interview originally appeared in Multi-Housing News, a Yardi publication. Read the rest of the interview with MHN’s Keith Loria here.