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Rexford Industrial Realty
Rexford Industrial Realty consolidates Southern California's fragmented infill industrial market through a proprietary research-driven acquisition...
Rexford Industrial Realty
Rexford Industrial Realty was founded in 2001 by Michael Frankel and Howard Schwimmer, who recognized that Southern California's fragmented industrial property market was ripe for institutional consolidation. The founders built a research database cataloging every industrial property in the region, creating an information advantage that drives a repeatable acquisition process. They took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2013, allowing it to scale its infill-only strategy with permanent capital. The firm's investment strategy centers exclusively on acquiring, improving, and operating industrial properties within infill Southern California — the most land-constrained and demand-intense logistics market in the United States. The portfolio spans warehouses, distribution buildings, and light manufacturing facilities, concentrated in submarkets like the Greater San Fernando Valley, Inland Empire West, and Central Los Angeles. Rexford differentiates by targeting off-market transactions and value-add repositioning of functionally obsolete properties, often acquired from private owners, family enterprises, or non-industrial users. Confirmed transactions include the acquisition of a 1.1 million-square-foot portfolio in the Inland Empire for $301 million in 2021 and the $1 billion Blackstone portfolio acquisition in 2022 (per the firm's filings, 2022). As a publicly traded entity, Rexford operates with a dual-CEO structure where Frankel and Schwimmer share leadership, an unusual governance design that has persisted since founding. The company does not disclose total employees but maintains teams structured around acquisitions, asset management, leasing, and construction, all focused within the Southern California infill footprint. Adjacent vehicles include a joint venture structure that has occasionally been used for larger portfolio transactions. December 2023: Rexford closed the largest year of acquisition volume in its history, deploying over $1.5 billion across 5.7 million square feet, signaling that scale continues to favor its consolidation thesis (per the firm, December 2023). Rexford's structural differentiator is its single-market focus combined with public-company scale — a model that allows it to out-research and out-acquire local private investors while offering institutional investors pure-play exposure to the lowest-vacancy industrial market in the country. No other publicly traded vehicle offers a comparably concentrated bet on Southern California infill industrial, where annual new supply represents less than 0.5% of existing stock.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2001
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Los Angeles
Corporate office
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Principals
Michael S. Frankel
Co-Chief Executive Officer
Howard Schwimmer
Co-Chief Executive Officer
Laura E. Clark
Chief Financial Officer
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What makes Rexford's investment strategy distinct from other industrial REITs?
Rexford is the only publicly traded REIT that invests exclusively in infill Southern California industrial properties. Its competitive advantage stems from a proprietary research platform that maps and tracks every industrial property across its 1.8 billion-square-foot target market, enabling an off-market acquisition pipeline that local private investors cannot replicate. This single-market focus concentrates exposure to the region with the highest logistics demand and lowest new supply in the U.S.
How does Rexford source its acquisitions?
Rexford sources the majority of its deals through a proprietary research engine that identifies off-market and lightly marketed properties, often held by private owners, family businesses, or non-industrial users unaware of the site's repositioning potential. The firm's internal database covers every industrial asset in Southern California, creating an information advantage that minimizes reliance on brokered transactions and auction processes.
Who runs investment decisions at Rexford?
Investment decisions are overseen jointly by Co-CEOs Michael Frankel and Howard Schwimmer, who founded the company in 2001 and have led its acquisition strategy since inception. The dual-CEO structure is a deliberate governance design that persists today, with a senior acquisitions team executing under their direction.
Does Rexford operate only in Southern California?
Yes. Rexford's mandate is exclusively infill Southern California industrial real estate, encompassing submarkets such as Greater San Fernando Valley, Inland Empire West, Central Los Angeles, and Orange County. The firm has never acquired properties outside this geography, making it the most concentrated pure-play on the region's logistics market.
What is Rexford's approach to value-add repositioning?
Rexford targets functionally obsolete industrial properties that can be redeveloped, modernized, or converted to higher-intensity logistics use. This includes upgrading clearance heights, adding dock-high loading, reconfiguring yard space, and addressing environmental remediation — improvements that unlock rent growth in supply-constrained infill submarkets where new ground-up development is effectively impossible.
How does Rexford's governance structure work with two CEOs?
Michael Frankel and Howard Schwimmer have served as Co-CEOs since founding the firm in 2001, a structure that has continued through its 2013 IPO. Both are integrally involved in investment strategy, capital allocation, and organizational leadership, with no indication that the structure has created strategic discord — it remains a distinguishing governance feature relative to its peer set.
How did Rexford build its proprietary research platform?
The platform originated from Frankel and Schwimmer's early recognition that Southern California's industrial market was highly fragmented, with no centralized source of asset-level data. They began manually cataloging every industrial property in the region, building a database that now spans 1.8 billion square feet and supports systematic identification of acquisition targets, ownership tracking, and submarket analytics ahead of competing buyers.
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