|
John Elwood is a Principal of the True North Management Group, LLC. True North was established in 2004 by Mr. Elwood, Richard Gunthel, Paul Turovsky and Mark Mutkoski as a multi-faceted private equity platform for debt and equity investments in the real estate sector. Mr. Elwood is principally responsible for sourcing and management of investments in hospitality, distressed debt and mezzanine segments. With the recent closing of a $104 million discretionary fund, True North currently focuses on mezzanine opportunities.
Mr. Elwood is a hotel industry and business-restructuring executive with over twenty years of experience in hospitality, real estate development, restructuring and banking. From 1997-1998 Mr. Elwood was President of Prime Hospitality Corp. (PDQ-NYSE), a publicly traded hotel management, development and franchising company. He joined Prime in 1990 to lead the company’s bankruptcy restructuring efforts, and served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer during the 1992-1997 period. While at Prime, Mr. Elwood was primarily responsible for raising approximately $1.0 billion in debt and equity capital for the acquisition and development of 97 hotels consisting of more than 13,000 rooms, and for the development of the AmeriSuites all-suite hotel brand.
Prior to joining Prime, Mr. Elwood served as Director of Reorganization of Allegheny International, Inc., directing the bankruptcy reorganization of the consumer product (Sunbeam/Oster) and industrial conglomerate during the period 1988-90. Prior to joining Allegheny, he served as Vice President of Mellon Bank, responsible for corporate lending and restructuring from 1980-1988.
Since leaving Prime in 1998, Mr. Elwood has raised approximately $1.7 billion in acquisition capital for hospitality industry corporate acquisitions, and established Good Hand Farm, a certified organic produce farm serving restaurants and markets in New Jersey and New York. He serves as a chairman of the board of World Harvest Mission in Philadelphia, PA and CAMP Youth Development in Paterson, NJ. Mr. Elwood received a BA degree from Georgetown University, and an MBA from Virginia Tech. He has been married for more than 25 years to Barbara Elwood, with whom he has raised three children.
| 