As Founder & CEO of Celestial Fund, Eugene Rutenberg is responsible for all facets of Celestial Fund I,LLC. and has final decision on which projects the firm participates in. Eugene has over 15 years’ experience as both a Lender & Capital Advisor Consultant and he has successfully closed over $1 Billion of complex floating-and fixed-rate commercial real estate transactions in his career.

 

Prior to founding Celestial Fund, Eugene was a Managing Director – Originations for Electra Capital (W. Palm Beach, FL) where he was responsible for sourcing, credit analysis, pricing, & structuring mezzanine debt and preferred equity multifamily transactions. Before, Eugene was a Senior Vice President of Originations at Inland Mortgage Capital, a subsidiary of the Inland Group of Companies (Chicago, IL) where he specialized in commercial real estate debt nationwide closing multifamily, office, retail, and industrial transactions. During his tenure at Inland Mortgage Capital, he was responsible for over 40% of total production volume and opened several key markets to IMC including San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco CA, and the state of Hawaii. Prior to IMC, Eugene was a Director at Continental Partners (Los Angeles, CA) a boutique investment banking firm where he originated over $250 million of debt and equity closings (approx. $1 billion in AUM) nationwide for all property types and worked closely with both Sponsors and capital sources such as Insurance Companies, CMBS Conduits, Banks, Bridge Funds, REITs and Private Money Lenders. Circa Continental, Eugene served as Vice President of Originations for Latitude Real Estate Investors (Beverly Hills, CA) later acquired by LaSalle Investment Management (Chicago, IL), at Latitude he closed $50 million of transactions in his first 11 months placing approximately $275 million of performing AUM on Latitude's Balance Sheet. He began his career at Thorofare Capital (Los Angeles, CA) where the origination of his first two deals closed, helped take the once California only Lender to National Lender status.

 

Eugene has earned a Bachelor of Science Degree, emphasis in Marketing & Real Estate from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. When not deal-making he enjoys mountain sports, scuba diving, the martial arts, & live concerts.