Bill Burns

  • 646.342.5835
  • bburns@gspartners.com

Senior Director

Bill Burns brings over 20 years of commercial real estate experience to George Smith Partners.

Prior to George Smith Partners, Bill served as Senior Vice President of iStar Financial Inc. (“iStar”). Before eventually becoming Safehold Inc., the largest publicly traded ground lease company, iStar was the original boutique finance and investment company focused primarily on the commercial real estate industry. During his tenure with iStar, Mr. Burns was responsible for the origination and asset management of more than $2.5 billion of real estate investments across a wide range of asset classes including hotel, multi-family, office, residential development land, data center, condo construction, marina development, and mixed-use properties. His responsibilities included the negotiation, underwriting, structuring and documentation of iStar’s highly structured large loan and sale lease-back transactions. Bill was also on the front lines during the Great Financial Crisis as he completed $750 million of loan workouts, restructurings, asset dispositions, foreclosures and the repositioning of strategic assets for iStar.

Prior to his time with iStar, Bill worked in Goldman Sachs’ Real Estate Principal Investments Area where he oversaw accounting and tax work for the Whitehall Real Estate Investment Funds. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Bill worked for Deloitte & Touche in the Real Estate Tax Department where his clients included the nascent Apollo and Blackstone Real Estate Funds.

Bill earned his MBA in Real Estate and Finance from Columbia Business School in 2002, and his BA in Economics/Accounting from College of the Holy Cross in 1994. Bill earned his CPA in the State of New York.