Rick cho

Rick Cho is founder of Jupiter Group and its affiliates (“Jupiter”) with over 30 years of experience in alternative investments. Since its founding in 2000, Rick’s diverse experience in domestic and international investments in various parts of the capital structure, company life-cycle and diverse industries has formed the nexus of Jupiter’s multi-disciplined capital preservation and cross-border arbitrage focus. Mr. Cho has a unique track record of realizing successful exits in different industries including, but not limited to real estate, technology, telecom, renewables and oil & gas

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Rick co-founded PacifiCap in the same year, and built it into the largest private equity firm based in Hawaii with initial seed funding from the State of Hawaii and secured both local LPs such as Castle and Atherton Foundation and international investors such as UMC Capital and Tokio Marine.  In the first 3 years, PacifiCap exceeded its matching investment criteria set by the State of Hawaii by more than 100 times (over $350mm).  PacifiCap’s co-investors include large institutional investors such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, AIG Global Investors, Kleiner Perkins, UBS.  To this day, no other fund manager seeded by the State of Hawaii has achieved this type of matching and breadth of co-investment into Hawaii companies. 

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In 2003, Rick acquired a 51% interest in Hansol Mutual Savings Bank, the largest mutual savings bank in Korea from the Hansol Group (Samsung family).  PacifiCap portfolio companies includes but not limited to FreshDirect, ABC TV series Lost, Iris Wireless, Pihana (Equinix)  and others.  Rick lead the development of its portfolio companies’ asian strategies and secured partnerships and contracts with AsiaLink, Korea Telecom, SK Telink, China Unicom, China Mobile and etc.  In 2005, Rick founded Peninsula Real Estate Partners with partner Samuel Chung and invested and secured approximately $500mm of debt and equity financings, becoming the largest financier of hotel condos in Hawaii during 2005-2007.  Seeing the economy and the industry move far away from his value oriented core, Jupiter divested all of its real estate assets by 2007 and 2008 and also exited many of its private equity portfolio.  

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Prior to Jupiter, Rick worked on the acquisition of distressed NPL loans in S. Korea for Morgan Stanley’s Special Situations Group, VP at Crown Capital (Peter Ackerman), VP at King Street Capital Management. Rick started his institutional investment management career as a financial analyst with Jones Lang Wootton Realty Advisors (now Clarion Partners) and JLW overseas investment management group in New York.  Later, he was a one of three professionals to start the West Coast office for Clarion Partners.

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Rick serves on number of boards of its portfolio companies as well as not for profit boards.  He was the youngest ever member of the Board of Governors (and past Trustee) of Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) the largest Asia Pacific telecom organization, Advisory Board of Chaminade University’s Hogan Entrepreneurs and others.  Rick has been a speaker and panelist at MIT’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference, MIT’s GLOBALTies Symposium, Redherring Conference, PTC’s Annual Conference and number of other conferences in private equity, venture capital and international investing. Rick is a graduate of University of Washington with a degree in Business Administration.

samuel chung

Samuel Chung co-founded Peninsula Real Estate Partners, LLC in 2005, (an affiliate of Jupiter and the predecessor company to Jupiter Group Real Estate) and advised and invested over $1 billion in real estate transactions.  Peninsula became the largest financier of hotel condos in the State of Hawaii between 2005-2007 with over $500m of financings including but not limited to Hilton Kauai, W Hotel Diamond Head, Aloha Beach Kauai and Renaissance Ilikai.

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Peninsula was the exclusive advisor on several large and landmark projects on behalf of the State of Hawaii including but not limited to the 36.5 acres of oceanfront land owned and managed by HCDA where it advised on the masterplan development and eventual JV deal with Alexander & Baldwin.  Peninsula also advised on restructuring of the sale of Kukui Garden affordable housing to Carmel Partners in order to save 50% of the project as affordable.  Using a combination of affordable housing subsidies in addition to State of Hawaii resources, we were able to carve out the project to keep half of the project as affordable housing.

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Sam started his career in real estate in 1993 as a Financial Analyst in the Chicago office of Heller Financial.  He financed over $2 billion of loans to myriad of industries from office, retail, manufactured housing, hotels, industrial, senior housing and etc across the country.  In 2001, he joined MW Group as the head of acquisition and financing.   During his tenure MW grew from $25mm real estate assets to over $150mm in assets including office, retail, senior housing and self-storage.  

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Peninsula's principal investment and development activities include but not limited to acquisition of Royal Garden Hotel Waikiki, a 228 room hotel in Waikiki later sold to Wyndham Worldwide, Holomua, the first ground up high rise in Honolulu after the GFC that was financed in partnership with State of Hawaii, Union funds and a local bank to support affordable housing and was sold out by completion.  

In addition to his role advising the State of Hawaii, Sam has served as the President of BOMA and have served as the special advisor to the Chairman of the Board of OHA, Office of Hawaiian Affairs which owns and manages billions of assets.  Sam is a graduate of University of Illinois with a BS in Finance.

theodore liu

Theodore Liu co-founded PacifiCap Group, LLC in 2000, an affiliate of Jupiter.  In 2003, the state of Hawaii's first Republican Governor Linda Lingle appointed Mr. Liu to head the Hawaii State Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT).  ​During his tenure, Hawaii’s economy underwent an entire business cycle: from low GDP and budget deficit in 2003; to among highest GDP and personal income growth rate in the U.S. with budget surpluses in 2006 – 2007; through severe global financial crisis recession of 2008 – 2009; and to recovery commencing QIII 2009. ​

Some highlights during his career include:

• Appointed by U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to President Bush’s national Strengthening America’s Communities Advisory Committee, 2005 – 2007.

• As State’s statutory Energy Resources Coordinator, conceptualized and implemented “Energy for Tomorrow” in 2006 and “Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative” (HCEI) in 2008, an acknowledged model for integrated transformation of energy systems.

• Conceptualized and implemented “Hawaii Innovation Initiative”, 2006, recognized by the National Governors Association and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

• Established the Creative Industries Division, with strategic focus on developing Hawaii’s creative and artistic assets in film, digital media, music, writing and publishing, arts and performing arts.  Obtained the inaugural GRAMMY™ Hawaiian Music Category.  Launched the Music Enterprise Learning Experience (MELE) in collaboration with Mike Curb Business School, Belmont University in Nashville.

• Oversaw restructuring of public housing agency under a HUD “Corrective Action Order” in 2003 into the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation, producing approximately 5,000 affordable units during tenure and 4,000 more units under development.​

Prior to PacifiCap, Mr. Liu was COO of Asia Investment Banking Department and Head of Morgan Stanley Asia ex-Japan.   Mr. Liu also established Morgan Stanley’s Shanghai and Beijing Representative Offices and Shanghai Stock Exchange trading seat. 

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While at Morgan Stanley, Mr. Liu was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of China International Capital Corporation "CICC" (on secondment from Morgan Stanley).  Mr. Liu participated in conceptualization, negotiation and execution of China International Capital Corporation (CICC), China’s first joint venture investment bank with partners China Construction Bank, China National Guaranty Corporation and Government Investment Corporation of Singapore.  

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Prior to Morgan Stanley, Mr. Liu established and headed​ Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom's China Practice Group. Mr. Liu started his career as an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York.  Mr. Liu's developed a keen interest in China since being a member of the founding staff of China Daily in 1980, China's first english language newspaper.

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Mr. Liu seats on number of for profit and non-profit boards including but not limited to Referentia, LiveAction, Aloha Urgent Care, GVS Accelerator, Honua Studios, University of Nations and etc.

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Mr. Liu graduated with J.D. from New York University Law School and B.A. from University of Michigan.

john rhim

John Rhim is a Managing Director at Jupiter and Landmark Real Estate, LLC.  John has served in this capacity at WNW Capital since 2019 and joined Jupiter in 2022 to focus on real estate acquisitions in office and hospitality.  

John started his career in Morgan Stanley Real Estate in 1999 in New York and Hong Kong. He then returned to US and worked at Angelo Gordon's real estate hedge fund investing in publicly traded real estate companies.  Starting in 2006 he worked at Capstone Equities and Harbor Group International investing in direct real estate across asset classes, geography and capital structure.  Throughout his career he has invested in/managed over 7.9m sf of assets totaling $3.7bn in AUM.

As head of acquisitions (office) at Harbor Group international, John developed significant experience and know how acquiring and owning office buildings after a major crisis such as GFC and the bull market recovery in real estate.   John's early and contrarian acquisitions following the GFC yielded some of Harbor Group's best office returns.   

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John has worked on several value-add office transactions in similarly challenged environments including: 

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• 4 NY Plaza in Downtown Manhattan - Purchased in 2010 for $100m ($97 psf, 7.00% cap rate), JP Morgan sold as a sale leaseback and downsized to 75% of the building at closing in a tough financing market, put in capital to upgrade the asset and release the vacant space, sold after 3 years at high multiple to investment.

• One South Wacker in Chicago - Purchased in 2012 for $221m (184 psf, 6.8% cap rate), implemented a heavy value add program, and reintroducing the asset to the market, leased up the asset from 75% occupancy and sold after 3 years for a high investment return

• 24 West 40th Street, Bryant Park Office New York City - purchased 2015 and converted to office condo and sold inventory at over $1,500 a sf and realized high returns

• 100 Plaza Drive, Secaucus, NJ -  purchased in 2013 and convinced NBA to lease entire building and exited 2016 for high return

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John is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a BA. 

Albert park

Albert Park is a Managing Director of Landmark Real Estate, LLC and CEO at WnW Capital, which he founded in 2009.  At WnW, Albert manages a public portfolio, which encompasses both long/short market neutral and global macro strategies, and also focuses on investments in private equity and debt and real estate.

Previously, Albert was Senior Analyst at Millennium Partners focusing on long/short small/mid cap strategy. Albert was Founder at Centrecourt Asset Management, a hedge fund focused on small cap equities as well as public and private debt. Before, Albert held several other investment and investment banking positions at major financial institutions including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.

Albert holds a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from University of Pennsylvania.

harvest asset management

Harvest is a registered AMC in S. Korea co-founded by Jupiter and C-level executives in the Korean investment management business with a long track record of success. 

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Clients include KKR, SVP, Lotte, and Korean institutions

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John Oh - Founding CEO of Samsung SRA, an institutional real estate platform created to manage all of Samsung's real estate investments as well as investing on behalf of third party institutional investors.

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Ian Park - Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Samsung Marine & Fire for over 10 years.  During his tenure, Samsung dramatically increased its allocation to alternative assets.​​

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