InterRent Real Estate Investment Trust president and chief executive Brad Cutsey is stepping down effective next Monday, the Ottawa-based company says. Cutsey, who was named CEO nearly four years ago and has served as InterRent’s president since 2015, is leaving the REIT “to turn his attention to the next chapter of his career,” the firm […]
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InterRent Real Estate Investment Trust president and chief executive Brad Cutsey is stepping down effective next Monday, the Ottawa-based company says.
Cutsey, who was named CEO nearly four years ago and has served as InterRent’s president since 2015, is leaving the REIT “to turn his attention to the next chapter of his career,” the firm said in a news release issued Wednesday evening after markets closed.
InterRent chief operating officer Dave Nevins has been appointed interim CEO to replace Cutsey, a Bishop’s University economics grad who worked as an equities analyst and head of real estate investment banking at Toronto-based Dundee Securities before joining InterRent more than a decade ago.
“Leading InterRent has been a true privilege,” Cutsey said in the release. “I've been humbled to work alongside such an exceptional team and am grateful to the board for their trust and confidence in me. It has been a meaningful journey, and knowing the REIT is well-positioned for what lies ahead gives me great confidence as I look to what's next.”
Cutsey did not immediately respond to requests for comment from OBJ on Thursday.
The leadership shakeup comes as InterRent executive chair Mike McGahan, the owner of Ottawa-based real estate firm CLV Group, and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC await final regulatory approval of a $2-billion bid to purchase the REIT. The deal is expected to close in the first half of this year.
In the release, lead InterRent trustee Paul Amirault said Cutsey “has had a profound impact on the team and culture” of the company, adding “he has moved the REIT forward in many meaningful ways.”
InterRent, which owns nearly 12,000 apartment units in three provinces, is one of two major Ottawa-based REITs along with Minto Apartment REIT.
Under Cutsey’s watch, InterRent’s total suite count has risen 30 per cent over the past decade. The company also became a trailblazer in the growing trend of converting aging commercial buildings into residential properties when it purchased the Trebla Building – a 50-year-old, 11-storey office complex at 473 Albert St. – in 2019 for $21.8 million.
In partnership with CLV Group, InterRent spent more than two years transforming the outdated structure into a mixed-use building with more than 150 rental apartment units as well as nearly 4,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
But the past few years have not been as kind to REITs as lower immigration levels and a flood of new apartment units entering the market have driven down rents in major cities across the country.
As a result, unit prices for publicly traded apartment owners like InterRent have flatlined. InterRent’s units were selling for $13.25 Thursday afternoon on the Toronto Stock Exchange, about where they were trading two years ago and down from more than $18 in November 2021, when interest rates were low and immigration levels were higher than they are now.
InterRent’s funds from operations, a key metric for REITs, were $72.3 million in 2025, a drop of more than 20 per cent from the previous year. The overall occupancy rate of InterRent’s units was virtually unchanged at 96.9 per cent, while average rents rose nearly three per cent to $1,749.
InterRent sold eight properties containing a total of 495 suites for net proceeds of nearly $114 million in 2025, and its total portfolio decreased from 12,160 suites in 2024 to 11,673 at the end of last year.
CLV Group and GIC are purchasing the REIT for $13.55 a unit, a 35 per cent premium over the price of InterRent units on March 7, 2025, when media first began reporting on a push by activist hedge fund Anson Funds for the company to be sold.
Anson Funds holds a nine per cent stake in InterRent and is the largest investor in the REIT. The Globe and Mail reported last March that the hedge fund was campaigning for a potential sale of the REIT after pushing InterRent’s board and management to stop buying more properties and instead focus on selling some of its assets to reduce its debt.
InterRent’s unitholders approved the sale last August. The deal, which was cleared under the federal Competition Act, is awaiting the green light from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. and certain other lenders.
Once the deal is finalized, InterRent will be de-listed from the TSX.
The acquisition is poised to cement CLV Group’s status as a leading force in Ottawa’s real estate development and property management sectors.
The firm’s roots stretch back to 1969, when its predecessor, Levinson-Viner, was founded. McGahan, who began his real estate career at Levinson-Viner, later started his own company, Commvesco, which then acquired Levinson-Viner in 1998 to form the CLV Group.
A decade later, CLV became InterRent’s property development and management arm. As of last year, it managed more than $3 billion in assets and had more than five million square feet of property development in its pipeline.
