Laing

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Diana Laing

Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Arden Realty Inc.

Claim to Fame: Decision-maker at one of L.A.’s most active real estate investment trusts

Diana Laing has been the driving force behind some of Arden Realty Inc.’s biggest deals.

As its chief financial officer, she secured financing last year for its $725 million acquisition of the Layton-Belling & Associates portfolio, just before the collapse of REIT stocks.

“The deal added 40 percent to Arden’s portfolio,” said Tom Irish, president of Transpacific Development Co. “Without Laing they would never have been able to secure the financing in time.”

Laing acts as a conduit between the more conservative world of Wall Street and the entrepreneurial leanings of Richard Ziman, Arden’s chairman and chief executive, and Victor Coleman, its president and chief operating officer.

“She can work with the financial institutions and investors on Wall Street in a way (Ziman and Coleman) might find difficult,” Irish says, explaining that she helps puts their ideas into marketable financial plans.

Investors generally are not ready to pour money back into REITs just yet. “It has become impossible to raise equity,” Laing said. “Although our stock has gone up by more than 10 percent since the beginning of the year, it is still not good enough for investors.”

Laing is a key strategist at Arden and is actively involved in its day-to-day operation. Last year, she participated in the acquisition of the Howard Hughes Center in Westchester, where Arden will develop a speculative office building.

“You should never say never, but for now development is not a main part of our business strategy,” she said. “We probably will not be breaking ground on another development until this one has been mostly leased.”

Arden recruited Laing in 1996, while she was the chief financial officer at South Western Property Trust Inc., a Texas-based REIT, where she had worked for 14 years and guided the firm’s initial public stock offering. Her experience appealed to Arden, which was preparing for its own IPO at the time.

“As far as the career move was concerned, it was a no-brainer,” she said. “But it was a hard decision to leave Texas, because I had lived there and in Oklahoma most of my life, and my husband had his career there.”

Laing has found Southern California an accommodating place for women.

“I hate to say it, but in Texas it was harder being a woman in the business,” she said. “It was more of an old boy’s club, whereas California is more open, and you feel that people want you to succeed.”

Edvard Pettersson

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