Hamid Moghadam (born August 26, 1956) is an Iranian-American business executive and philanthropist.[1][2][3] In 2011, Moghadam orchestrated the combination between AMB,[4] a firm he co-founded in 1983,[1][2] and ProLogis to create Prologis, the largest logistics real estate company in the world. Moghadam currently serves as Prologis Chairman and CEO, with Prologis operating as a global logistics real estate investment trust (REIT)[4][5] and S&P 100 company.[6]
Hamid R. Moghadam | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 26, 1956 |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SB; SM) Stanford University (MBA) |
| Occupation(s) | Chairman and CEO of Prologis |
| Years active | 1980s-present |
| Board member of | Stanford Management Company Stanford Graduate School of Business |
| Website | Moghadam - Prologis |
Early life and education
Born in 1956[7] in Iran,[8] he grew up in Tehran,[1] where his father was a businessman.[1][8] In 1969[8] he attended school in Switzerland.[1][7][8] In 1973, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,[8][7] where he received Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in engineering.[8][9] In 1980 Moghadam received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in California.[10][1]
Career
Founding Abbey, Moghadam & Company
After business school, Moghadam[2][7] started his career at Homestake Mining Company. He later joined John McMahan Associates.[11] In 1983, he and Douglas Abbey founded Abbey, Moghadam & Company in San Francisco, California.[1][2][12] Although they planned to provide investment advisory services, according to Forbes, they soon became known for instead "helping investors revive underperforming assets."[2] They were joined by T. Robert Burke in 1984 and established AMB Institutional Realty Advisors, later named AMB Property Corp.,[1] with initial investments in office, industrial and community shopping centers.[13]
Going public with AMB
In the late 1980s, AMB changed its investment strategy to focus on industrial parks and shopping centers in infill trade areas,[2] with the company beginning to exit the office market in 1987.[13] During the collapse of the office building market in the late 1980s, this shift in assets helped the company avoid significant financial repercussions.[2] AMB launched its first private equity fund in 1989, which focused on industrial and retail properties.[12] AMB consolidated several of its investment funds in 1997[8] and went public as an REIT.[14] In late 1997,[12] AMB closed its IPO with more than US $2.8 billion in assets.[13]
Throughout 1999, Moghadam "made a series of moves that pared the company of most of its retail holdings, following the notion that e-commerce would become the high-margin road of the future."[1] Selling its retail business around 1999 to focus solely on the industrial sector,[12] starting that year AMB sold nearly $1 billion in retail assets to institutional investors and reallocated funds into warehouses in and around major consumption areas.[15][16] By the end of 1999, AMB was the second-largest industrially focused REIT in the United States, with a total market capitalization of $3.5 billion.[1] President and CEO of AMB Property Corporation,[17] he became AMB chairman in 2000.[3] AMB made its first overseas investment in 2002, developing a facility for Procter & Gamble in Mexico City.[12] In 2002, AMB initiated an international expansion program[13] focused on buying and developing distribution facilities near global trade hubs,[2] particularly in growth markets such as Latin America, Asia,[2] and Europe.[18][19][20][21][22] AMB added an internal development division in 2004.[12][3]
Creation of Prologis
In 2011[12] Moghadam arranged the combination between AMB and ProLogis to create Prologis, the largest logistics real estate company in the world.[4][5] With a market cap of approximately $24 billion[4] and corporate headquarters remaining in California,[5] the new Prologis had around $46 billion in assets under management (AUM)[5] and clients such as DHL, Home Depot Inc., Unilever,[5] and FedEx.[12] ProLogis CEO Walter Rakowich and Moghadam were appointed as the new company's co-CEOs, with Moghadam becoming the sole CEO[5] at the start of 2013.[7][3] He oversaw IPOs in Japan in 2013[23] and Mexico in 2014.[24]
Prologis continues to operate as a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT)[25] on the S&P 100,[26][27] operating logistics and distribution facilities for customers in various industries[4][5][28] in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.[28] In 2018 he oversaw its acquisition of DCT Industrial Trust for $8.4 billion,[29] and in 2020, acquisitions of Liberty Property Trust for $13 billion and Industrial Property Trust for $4 billion,[30] then Duke Realty in 2022 for $23 billion.[31] The company's platform totals 1.2 billion square feet that is owned, managed or under development in 19 countries,[32] with about $196 billion in assets under management.[33] Moghadam frequently appears on major television networks to talk about the real estate industry, including CNBC,[34] Bloomberg TV, and Fox Business Network, as a real estate industry expert.[35]
Industry boards and committees
In the 1990s, he joined the MIT Center for Real Estate's advisory committee,[17] and became a founding member of The Real Estate Roundtable[21] as vice chairman of the National Realty Committee.[17] He served as a trustee of the Urban Land Institute,[21] and joined the executive committee of its board of directors.[36][37] He was also the chairman of National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT)[38] in 2004.[39]
Philanthropy
Moghadam has served on various philanthropic and community boards in the San Francisco Bay Area.[40] He served on the boards of Town School for Boys, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum,[21] and he was chairman of the Young Presidents Organization's Northern California chapter.[21][41]
Previously a trustee of Stanford University,[42][21] Moghadam is currently a board member of the Stanford Management Company,[21][10] and was its former chairman.[10][21] He and his wife established the Moghadam Family Professorship in the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he serves on the advisory council,[10] after endowing the Stanford Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies in 2006, which focuses on undergraduate courses related to Iran.[43][44]
Awards and recognition
Moghadam was named EY's 1998 Real Estate Award Winner for the Northern California Region.[45] In 2005, Moghadam was presented with an Industry Leadership Award from the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT).[46][39][47] He received a Lifetime of Building Award from the Commercial Real Estate Development Association (NAIOP) in 2007, and also that year he received the Wisconsin Alumni Center's Vision Setter Award.[46] Moghadam received the EY National Entrepreneur of the Year Overall Award in 2013,[48] as well as[49] the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations Foundations, Inc. (NECO).[49] Harvard Business Review named him one of the 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World three times,[50][51] and a number of industry publications have named him their CEO of the Year.[46]
Personal life
Moghadam and his wife Christina[10] have a son together.[1][8] In American politics, as of 2016, Moghadam had endorsed both Republicans and Democrats.[52]