It’s been quite a ride for Veris Residential Inc. The company’s multi-year transformation reached a milestone in May, capping a long-running restructuring and closing its public company chapter.
Veris’ transformation began in 2021, when Mahbod Nia was appointed CEO to lead the former Jersey City, New Jersey-based Mack‑Cali Realty Corp. through an extensive repositioning, which set the company on a path out of suburban office and toward a more focused multifamily strategy. Veris also rebranded that same year, signaling a clean break from its past and a new identity centered solely on apartments.
Nia led the multibillion-dollar exit from the company’s office assets, rebuilt its balance sheet, and reshaped the business around high-quality residential communities in the Northeast. A $3.5 billion deal led by Affinius Capital and Vista Hill Partners to take Veris private, completed in May, marked the final step in that process.
“It’s incredibly rewarding because this was never a cosmetic repositioning,” Nia says. “It was a fundamental reinvention of the company.”
Strategy and Credibility Reset
When Nia took over in March 2021, the company’s portfolio was a mix of suburban office, multifamily, as well as some hotels and land. “We were quite diversified,” Nia recalls. “Roughly two-thirds was office and one-third was multifamily. But investors value focus. They want you to pick one thing you’re good at and do it really well.”
Jersey City office fundamentals had been deteriorating for years, with structural vacancy hovering around 20% and later rising even higher. Multifamily, although a smaller part of the company’s business, offered stronger long-range demand drivers and a more attractive risk-return profile.
“Putting office side by side with multifamily, it was clear multifamily offered the strongest long-term value proposition,” Nia says. “It’s something this company is extremely good at. We build some of the highest-quality, best-amenitized properties out there.”
Others shared that view as well. Bow Street, one of the company’s largest shareholders, was among the earliest voices pushing for a reset. Managing Partner Akiva Katz says the company had “a suite of assets that was confusing to the market and never had a shot of being a well-valued public company,” with a mix that “obscured the business’s crown jewel, which was its residential business.”
Years of high costs and weak accountability, he adds, led to enormous underperformance versus peers and certainly versus the quality of the assets the company owned.
When Bow Street’s recommendations weren’t acted on, the firm launched a hard-fought, two-year proxy contest that ultimately produced “a board that was highly focused on value creation and perfectly aligned behind a plan to streamline the company, make it sale ready, take down costs, and grow the underlying business by taking rents,” Katz explains.
Key to that plan was bringing in Nia as CEO, whom Katz describes as an “‘A’ player: brilliant, incredibly hard working, and deeply inspirational as a leader, and most importantly, a value-oriented individual who prioritizes shareholders.” Looking back, Katz is clear: “Nia and his team did an amazing job in a very difficult environment. Shareholders owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.”
Before joining Veris, Nia had led a similar turnaround at NorthStar Realty Europe, where he reduced leverage, simplified the business, and delivered a clean exit for shareholders.
“Turnaround situations teach you that clarity and credibility matter more than optimism,” Nia points out. “We learned the importance of simplifying the story, acting decisively, and communicating transparently with stakeholders. I brought that same mindset to Veris.”
With a new board, a new CEO, and a mandate for change, Veris began the hard work of rebuilding itself.
Executing the Office Exit
The pivot was also fueled by broader market dynamics. The pandemic accelerated remote work and further weakened already-soft suburban office fundamentals, creating a brief window for Veris to exit from office and concentrate on its best‑in‑class multifamily platform.
To make that shift possible, the company had to shed its suburban office footprint. Nia says they needed to sell those assets at acceptable values during a period of unusually high vacancy. “The challenge was how do we get out of office when no one’s even in the office?” he explains.
A short window of optimism around the “hub-and‑spoke” model — the idea that companies would maintain a small urban hub supported by suburban satellites — provided the opening they needed. “We sold into that strength and were pretty decisive,” Nia says. “Doing it quickly was critical.”
Those sales, completed at single-digit discounts to pre-Covid values, provided the capital needed to stabilize the balance sheet. They also allowed Veris to move away from a sector with declining fundamentals and toward one with stronger demand.
Deleveraging and Operational Reset
Deleveraging became the next priority. At one point, Nia says the multifamily business was levered at nearly 19 times cash flow, which was a level the public markets wouldn’t support, even prior to interest rates rising.
Nia says the model he inherited was “really a levered merchant developer,” referring to a structure built on heavy debt and selling properties rather than holding them. As multifamily became the public company’s primary business, that leverage had to come down. Over several years, Veris used proceeds from property sales to cut it roughly in half.
“That really saved the company,” Nia says. “We wouldn’t have been able to support that level of debt with rates where they are now.”
At the same time, the company rebuilt its governance and operating structure. A high-profile proxy campaign had shaken investor confidence, and restoring credibility through ongoing communication and visible progress was essential.
“Transparency creates accountability, and accountability drives performance,” Nia says. “If you’re honest with people, set realistic goals, and update them over time, you build credibility.”
Multifamily Platform Emerges
By 2024, Veris had fully exited office and emerged as a pure-play multifamily REIT with more predictable cash flow. At the time of the sale, Veris owned 17 Class A communities totaling 6,581 units, with an average asset age of roughly 10 years. Most properties were positioned along the New Jersey waterfront -- in Hoboken, Jersey City, and Port Imperial -- with additional properties in the Boston metro area.
“As an investment thesis, having high-quality properties close to strong economic centers like New York and Boston just works,” Nia notes.
He says the company’s geographic concentration was a competitive advantage, as these markets offer strong employment bases, high barriers to entry, and steady demand from affluent renters.
High-Income, Renter-by-Choice Base
Average household income across the portfolio was around $400,000, with about 10% of residents earning seven‑figure salaries, Nia points out. Many were renters by choice who valued flexibility, amenities, and proximity to major job hubs. Properties like Haus25 attracted residents seeking luxury living at rents below those in prime Manhattan, Nia notes. The 57-story Jersey City tower offers extensive amenities that appeal to high-income, renter-by-choice households.
“You can live across the river, have unobstructed views of Manhattan, live in a brand‑new building with phenomenal amenities, and save 30% on your rent,” he explains. “You can also save on New York City tax even if you work in New York. In many cases, it pretty much pays for itself to move across the river.”
This renter base provides stable occupancy, strong rent growth, and a resilient revenue stream, all of which supported Veris’ long-term strategy.
Sustainability as a Differentiator
Sustainability became a key part of the Veris platform. The company integrated environmental and wellness standards across its operations, earning green building certifications at approximately 80% of its communities and sourcing all operationally controlled electricity from renewable energy. Veris also met its 2030 carbon-reduction goals ahead of schedule and earned a WELL Equity Rating across the portfolio.
These efforts were not just about sustainability; they were about resident experience. “Our residents value the experience and convenience of many of these initiatives, in addition to the apartment itself,” Nia says. “It’s a differentiating factor.”
He says some projects delivered immediate benefits. At one property, a vacant retail space was converted into a hydroponic farm that produced herbs and vegetables for residents.
“We turned it into an amenity space,” Nia says. “Residents can go down, grab a bag of herbs, make pesto, and post about it with their grandchildren.”
Other projects, like onsite beekeeping and branded honey, created goodwill at minimal cost.
Why a Sale Made Sense
As Veris strengthened its operations and balance sheet, long-term questions about scale and cost of capital became more critical. The public markets still valued the company below its net asset value, which reflected its transition as well as the challenges that smaller REITs faced.
“Scale matters in the public markets because you have high fixed costs,” Nia explains. “At some point, you have to recognize that you’ve created something valuable, but it probably belongs either within a larger public REIT or in the private markets.”
Nia says the Veris transaction fits into a wider trend of small and mid-cap apartment REITs exploring strategic alternatives as they face rising rates, higher public-company costs, and ongoing investor pressure. “If you’re not growing or you’re not the most efficient, you’re going to come under scrutiny,” Nia says.
For Veris, the deal provided a strategic resolution and a natural conclusion to the transformation.
A Closing Chapter
For Nia, the sale represents both closure and validation. “We set out to build a company designed for long-term value creation, and that’s what we’ve done,” he says. Despite navigating Covid, inflation, and rising interest rates, “We’ve delivered a final chapter to what has been widely regarded as a very successful transformation story.”
With the sale complete, Nia plans to take a short break before deciding on his next move. “This has been an incredible journey,” he says. “I feel so privileged to have been given the opportunity to steer the ship over the last five years.” He expects to return to the industry after a few months off. “I hope to be back doing something equally interesting again soon,” he adds.