Hana Pays $305M for NJ Office Campus

Hana Asset Management, a subsidiary of Hana Financial Group, one of the largest bank holding companies in South Korea, has purchased a Class A office project in Plainsboro, New Jersey for $305 million, making it the largest single-asset sale in New Jersey to date in 2016. The 762,000 square foot complex was sold by a partnership between Ivy Equities, LCOR Inc. and Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. in a deal brokered by Cushman & Wakefield; C&W also secured financing while Goulston & Storrs advised Hana in the transaction. The acquisition is the latest in Hana's program to acquire core office properties in the metropolitan areas of major U.S. cities, such as New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Houston and Seattle.

"The superior investment-grade tenant and durable in-place cash flow with contractual rent steps at 800 Scudders Mill enabled us to source this noteworthy partnership as the purchasing entity," said Andrew Merin of Cushman & Wakefield's Metropolitan Area Capital Markets Group. "The result – a major offshore investment in New Jersey - is a big win for the state. The transaction came with a number of challenges, including the complexity of multiple partners on both sides of the sale."

"This was indeed a complex transaction involving a foreign entity trying to understand structural considerations for financing in the U.S.," John Alascio, a managing director with C&W, said in a prepared statement. "Future funding components are always complex in terms of logistics and obtaining lender approval. It can often be easier with single-tenant financing, which this is, but in this instance, given the nature of future funding and the earn-out of space to the tenant, it was particularly challenging. Overall, we delivered the best deal in the marketplace, working around the structural concerns of both the buyer and seller."

The Class A property features nine interconnected buildings on 59 acres in the heart of the Princeton sub market, and was originally developed in 1985 for Merrill Lynch. Novo Nordisk, headquartered at the office park, currently occupies 498,000 square feet on a net lease basis with expansion rights. The pharmaceutical company has occupied the campus since 2013, when the property underwent a full redevelopment.

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