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Douglas Emmett
Jordan Kaplan leads Douglas Emmett, a publicly traded REIT controlling 18M sq ft of office and multifamily assets in coastal Los Angeles and Honolulu.
Douglas Emmett
Douglas Emmett was founded in 1971 by the Douglas and Emmett families as a Los Angeles real estate operator, building a portfolio of suburban office and apartment properties before Dan Emmett and Jordan Kaplan began transforming it into a concentrated urban-inflection vehicle in the 1990s. The firm went public in 2006 but retained the hands-on structure of a private operator — Kaplan, who joined in 1991 as general counsel, has led the company as CEO since 2016 through a strategy of intense geographic concentration. The firm owns and operates office towers and luxury apartment buildings exclusively in the Westside submarkets of Los Angeles — Brentwood, Santa Monica, Century City, Beverly Hills — and in urban Honolulu. Office properties represent roughly 80% of net rentable area, with the balance in multifamily units that benefit from the same coastal demographic constraints the firm exploits on the commercial side. Douglas Emmett self-performs property management, leasing, construction, and maintenance, an integrated model that peers like Boston Properties or Kilroy largely outsource for at least some functions. Confirmed tenants include major law firms, financial services companies, and entertainment-industry occupiers. The company's portfolio totals approximately 18 million square feet across 72 office properties and 14 multifamily communities, with zero exposure to suburban or Sunbelt markets that have fragmented other coastal REITs. In May 2024, the firm reported quarterly funds from operations of $0.44 per share, with same-property office occupancy holding above 87% in a market where Los Angeles office vacancy has averaged closer to 25% (per the firm, May 2024). Douglas Emmett also operates a taxable REIT subsidiary that provides real estate services to third parties, though the scale is negligible relative to the owned portfolio. What genuinely differentiates Douglas Emmett is its refusal to diversify geographically — the firm has made no meaningful expansion beyond its two core markets in three decades, a deliberate bet that coastal supply constraints in land-zoned jurisdictions create pricing power no other REIT can replicate at comparable scale. Nearly every peer REIT diversified into Texas, the Carolinas, or life-science conversion plays during the post-pandemic rotation; Douglas Emmett bought back shares and stayed put, a posture that makes the firm a pure-play expression of the view that premier urban office is mispriced, not obsolete.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
1971
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Santa Monica
Corporate office
Santa Monica, CA, United States
Additional offices
Honolulu, HI, United States
Principals
Jordan L. Kaplan
President & CEO
Kenneth M. Panzer
Chief Operating Officer
Peter Seymour
Chief Financial Officer
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What makes Douglas Emmett's portfolio geography different from peer office REITs?
The firm owns office and apartment properties exclusively in the Westside submarkets of Los Angeles and urban Honolulu — two land-constrained coastal markets with some of the highest barriers to new supply in the United States. While peer office REITs such as Boston Properties, Kilroy Realty, or Cousins Properties have diversified across multiple metropolitan areas and Sunbelt markets, Douglas Emmett has not expanded beyond its original two markets in over 30 years. This concentration creates outsized exposure to recovery in premier coastal office submarkets and shields the portfolio from suburban vacancy trends.
Who runs investment and capital allocation decisions at Douglas Emmett?
President and CEO Jordan Kaplan, a longtime insider who joined the firm as general counsel in 1991, oversees all strategic and capital allocation decisions. Kaplan became CEO in 2016 and has maintained the firm's disciplined geographic concentration through multiple cycles. COO Kenneth Panzer manages day-to-day property operations, leasing, and construction across the portfolio, while CFO Peter Seymour oversees capital markets activity, balance-sheet management, and investor relations.
Is Douglas Emmett a family office or a public company?
Douglas Emmett is a publicly traded real estate investment trust listed on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker DEI. It went public in 2006, though its operating history stretches back to 1971 as a private real estate company. It functions as a fully integrated, self-administered REIT that owns, operates, and develops its own properties — a structure that is distinct from family-office real estate platforms but shares operational DNA with hands-on private owners.
Does Douglas Emmett develop new properties or only acquire existing ones?
The firm operates as a developer when opportunities arise within its existing submarket footprint, assembling land parcels in West Los Angeles and Honolulu for ground-up apartment and office projects. Unlike diversified developers, Douglas Emmett does not pursue merchant-build strategies or speculative construction outside its two core markets. The development pipeline is modest and serves primarily to densify existing land positions rather than enter new geographies.
What is the firm's exposure to multifamily versus office assets?
Office properties account for roughly 80% of Douglas Emmett's net rentable area, with the remaining 20% concentrated in 14 luxury apartment communities in Los Angeles and Honolulu. The multifamily portfolio benefits from the same coastal supply constraints as the office portfolio. Both asset classes are managed by the same in-house property management and leasing teams, and the firm does not separate the investment strategy by product type.
How does Douglas Emmett source tenants given remote-work headwinds in coastal office markets?
The firm relies on a fully in-house leasing team that covers its concentrated Westside Los Angeles and Honolulu submarkets. Tenant demand in these areas skews toward law firms, entertainment companies, financial services firms, and professional-services firms that place a premium on physical proximity to clients and talent in these specific coastal nodes. Douglas Emmett's occupancy has materially outperformed the broader Los Angeles office market, a spread the firm attributes to location quality and hands-on property management rather than concession-heavy lease terms.
Is there a family connection to the original Douglas and Emmett founding families?
Dan Emmett, whose family co-founded the firm in 1971, served as chairman until 2016 and was instrumental in shaping the company's geographic focus before the IPO. The Douglas family involvement receded earlier. Today the firm is institutionally managed under Kaplan, with no material day-to-day involvement from the founding families, though the historical name and operational ethos remain intact.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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