Ron Rawald, senior managing director and head of international real estate at Cerberus Capital Management, died over the weekend, confirmed Lee Millstein, president of Cerberus Global Investments and global head of real estate, in a letter sent to investors.
Mr. Rawald was 56. The cause of death was not disclosed.
"Ron was kind and thoughtful, adventurous and entertaining, and had an extraordinary ability to make friends with anyone he met," Mr. Millstein wrote.
Mr. Rawald's real estate career spanned 32 years and multiple countries. After graduating from Indiana University and receiving an MBA from Fordham University, Mr. Rawald joined Equitec Properties Company in Indianapolis. Then, from 1989 to 1998, he worked in New York at Merrill Lynch in distressed loan trading and in real estate portfolio management and separately, at TIAA, managing its Southern California property assets.
From 1998 to 2003, Mr. Rawald lived in Tokyo, where he worked with Mr. Millstein at Morgan Stanley's special situations group, investing in distressed assets throughout Asia.
"We met when he first joined Morgan Stanley in 1998 and only a few months later, we both moved to Tokyo," Mr. Millstein wrote. "Traveling the world, sitting through countless roll-up and investment committees, Ron helped lead the way as we built businesses across the globe."
Mr. Rawald then became a founding partner of the private equity real estate fund Aetos Capital, which invested in Japanese assets, where he worked from 2001 to 2004 before joining Fortress Investment Group's Frankfurt office as a managing director responsible for commercial property and special situations investments in Europe.
In 2006, he joined Cerberus as head of European real estate, overseeing the acquisition of property-related assets throughout the region. He assumed his most recent role at the firm in 2017, leading the firm's international real estate strategy.
Information regarding services or where to send flowers or donations wasn't provided.
In his letter, Mr. Millstein added: "He was fiercely loyal and touched the lives of many people around the globe. Most of all, Ron was very proud of and close to his family. As I sit here writing this, there are so many memories going through my mind — for now, I will simply say that I will miss him very much."
