Bob Fraser and James Maffuccio of Aspen Funds join Lance to discuss how they started Aspen in 2012. Bob and Jim combine Bob’s 20-year experience in finance and Jim’s 30-year real estate expertise to create a less-volatile investment opportunity for investors with their note buying strategy. Bob and Jim dive into embracing “seconds”, how they perform due diligence, and how their due diligence process helps their firm mitigate risk.
This Week’s Guests
Mr. Maffuccio is a 30-year real estate veteran and an expert in mortgage notes. He is deeply networked in the secondary mortgage industry and is responsible for acquisitions and underwriting as well as relationships with primary sources and key vendors.
Maffuccio received his degree in civil engineering from Louisiana State University in 1979. Upon graduating, Mr. Maffuccio moved to the West Coast and gained extensive project management experience with Exxon.
From 1986 to present, Mr. Maffuccio has been engaged full time in the real estate development and investment industry. In addition, he has overseen several hundred purchase, sale, and/or financing transactions, and has been a licensed real estate agent since 1985.
During his real estate career, Mr. Maffuccio developed, and/or rehabbed multiple residential projects in Southern California, including infill subdivisions, affordable homes, luxury homes and homesites, multifamily, and planned developments, such as the Gold Nugget Award-winning “Traditions” community in Fillmore. Mr. Maffuccio has personally executed and/or managed every aspect of the development process, including site selection and acquisition, project conceptualization and design, procurement of entitlements and permits, regulatory compliance, entity structuring and capitalization, construction management, marketing, sales, and investor relations.
In 2009, Mr. Maffuccio began investing in mortgage loans, developing key sources and vendors and applying his extensive real estate experience to the note investment space. In 2012 Maffuccio co-founded Aspen Funds, a fund management company focused on mortgage investments.
Mr. Fraser has 20+ years’ experience as a finance and technology executive and is a Magna Cum Laude U.C. Berkeley computer scientist and a former Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner. Fraser is responsible for financial management, portfolio modeling, as well as systems and processes, designing and deploying Aspen’s scalable state-of-the-art back-end platform.
In 1995, Mr. Fraser founded NetSales, Inc., a back-office e-commerce provider. As a CEO, Mr. Fraser raised $44 million in investment capital, and guided the company to an average of 20% month-to-month revenue growth, becoming the metro area’s fastest growing company between 1997 and 1999.
Since 2002 Fraser has founded and served several non-profit organizations as a board member and CFO. Fraser has also been involved in a number of entrepreneurial initiatives, including book publishing, financial consulting, and an investment fund managing member.
In 2012 Fraser co-founded Aspen Funds, a fund management company focused on mortgage investments.
