Stefan Baugh

Stefan D. Baugh is a co-founder, Managing Principal, and Chief Compliance Officer of Emet Capital Management, LLC, a New York–based private equity firm he helped launch in 2011–2012 alongside Paul Siegel (and Cameron Booth). He brings more than 25 years of experience as a real estate and finance lawyer, and his legal background underpins the firm's specialty: acquiring distressed and special-situation debt collateralized by rental housing.

Before founding Emet, Baugh was a partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP (2006–2012), where he represented private equity firms, developers, investment banks, commercial banks, and specialty finance companies in real estate transactions — with an emphasis on workouts and restructurings of distressed assets, joint ventures, development and construction matters, and structured real estate financings. Earlier in his career he served as in-house counsel at CapitalSource Inc. (2004–2006), as an associate at Troutman Sanders LLP (2001–2004), and began his career at DLA Piper in 2000 working on venture capital and M&A matters. He is licensed to practice law in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Baugh earned a B.S. from Towson University (1996) and a J.D. from William & Mary School of Law (2000). In 2010 he was named a recipient of The Network Journal's "40 Under-Forty" Black Achievement Awards, recognizing professional accomplishment and community contribution.

• Invests in distressed debt secured by rental-housing real estate that qualifies for municipal revenue bond financing — a highly specialized niche.
• Targets three core subsectors: affordable multifamily housing, student housing, and senior housing.
• Strategy: purchase discounted debt securities → gain control of the underlying real estate → rehabilitate/reposition the asset → increase its value (a classic distressed-to-control real estate playbook).
• Focus is on distressed municipal revenue bonds and special situations, not equity investments in operating companies or technology startups.
• Manages multiple private equity funds with $600M+ in aggregate capital commitments and a portfolio of ~34 assets across ~15 U.S. states.