Recent merger creates mortgage banking firm

Real Estate Weekly, Oct 14, 1992

The companies that arranged financing for such major real estate projects as the Long Wharf Maritime Center in New Haven, Connecticut and Crystal Mall in Waterford, Connecticut announce they have joined forces to establish a new company that becomes one of the largest commercial mortgage banking firms in the region.

Epstein Funding, Inc., and Fowler, Goedecke, Ellis & O'Connor of Connecticut, Inc. (FGEO & CT) have consummated a merger designed to finance high-quality commercial properties. The new firm is known as Fowler Goedecke Ellis & O'Connor Company.

Alvin J. Epstein, founder/president of Epstein Funding, Inc., and Edgar A. Boardman, president of FGEO CT, are the managing directors of the merged entity. The new company will continue to occupy existing offices in Westport and Hartford, Connecticut.

The merged company is affiliated with New England's largest commercial mortgage banking company, the Boston-based Fowler, Goedecke, Ellis & O'Connor, Inc. The combined firms service a real estate loan portfolio in excess of $3.2 billion dollars. Connecticut properties account for half a billion of that total.

Epstein founded his firm in Westport in 1978. The company has operated in a largely independent fashion, and has developed long-standing relationships with many national and institutional lenders.

FGEO CT was established in 1985 by Edgar Boardman and the principals of the Boston firm. The company has formal correspondent arrangements with 9 major life insurance companies, and represents them in producing income property loans in the State of Connecticut. FGEO CT provides servicing, as well as loan origination, and arranges both equity and debt financing.

In the past year the two companies developed a close working relationship, collaborating on the $145 million financing of the United States Department of Transportation Building in Washington, D.C. They began exploring how to join forces for the benefit of their companies and clients, while preserving their individual strengths. The solution was to create a new company that would incorporate the best of both.