Forest City and QIC Complete Mall JVs

Forest City Enterprises, is a national real estate company with $10.7 billion in total assets, announced this week that it has completed and partly closed its joint ventures with QIC Global Real Estate, the real estate arm of Australia-based Queensland Investment Corp., to recapitalize and invest in a portfolio of eight of Forest City's regional retail malls. According to a GlobeSt.com report, the deal brings QIC GRE a 49% equity interest in the properties at a cost of $435.6 million, with the portfolio valued at $2.05 billion.

"This strategic capital partnership with QIC is our largest such initiative to date, and an exciting opportunity to work with an experienced global investor to enhance these already strong retail centers," said David LaRue, Forest City president and chief executive officer. "We look forward to building a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship that creates value for both of our organizations."

"The US portfolio clearly has the scope to be a very large presence for us," said QIC Global Real Estate managing director Steve Leigh in an interview with The Australian. "US retail sales are growing by about 7% per annum compared with Australia where it is essentially flat - zero to 1%,. In regional malls - the type of malls we would invest in - there is a universe of around 1200 in the US, and they trade more frequently."

The eight properties being joint ventured are Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, California, Charleston Town Center in Charleston, West Virginia, Mall at Robinson near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Promenade in Temecula, California, Galleria at Sunset in Henderson, Nevada, Antelope Valley Mall in Palmdale, California, Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Virginia, and South Bay Galleria in Redondo Beach, California.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Dornin Buys Katy Freeway Office Building in Houston

Dornin Investment Group, a Laguna Beach, CA-based real estate investment and asset management firm, has purchased 15915 Katy Freeway from Downtown Properties. The 105,619-square foot office building was sold for an undisclosed amount free and clear of debt, according to a press release. HFF marketed the property on behalf of Downtown Properties, the U.S. real estate associate of Gaw Capital Partners.

Built in 1982, 15915 Katy Freeway is located in the Park 10 sector of Houston's Energy Corridor. The 6-story building underwent $1 million in property improvements and upgrades in 1998. The Class B office building was 88.7% leased at the time of sale with a diverse mix of tenants in industries such as engineering, technology, real estate, energy and healthcare.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Blumberg in the News

Blumberg Grain was featured as an investor at the 19th Economic Summit organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group in Abuja last week, with participants drawn from virtually all sectors of the economy to deliberate on ways to unlock Nigeria’s agric potential.  As featured in an article titled Economic Summit Offers Blueprint to Unlock Nigeria’s Agric Potential in THISDAY LIVE, an excerpt follows:

Speaking at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the Minister of Agric. Adesina said the federal government would establish 800 warehouses across the country, which is at least one warehouse in every local government area in Nigeria.

He added that the Federal Government would create an Agriculture Information System to help gather data for farmers and also recruit those that will manage the warehouses.

It was gathered that Blumberg has agreed to invest $250 million in warehouse facilities in Nigeria as a fallout of the agreement with the African Exchange Holdings.

When operational, the warehouses will be leased by the government to private investors “so that farmers can make money”, the minister said.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

 

Prudential Sells Mission Ridge Complex

Prudential Real Estate Investors, the real estate investment management business of Prudential Financial, Inc., sold the Mission Ridge office complex in Mission Viejo, California to Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, a subsidiary of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, on behalf of an institutional investor, purchased the asset free and clear of existing debt. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, experts familiar with the Orange County market valued the Mission Ridge deal in the mid-$50-million range, according to a Los Angeles Times article. HFF marketed the property on behalf of Prudential Real Estate Investors.

"In the last real estate cycle we had the perfect storm of the subprime meltdown, a lot of new construction coming online and then the national recession," said real estate broker Ryan Gallagher of HFF. "This time we have a very balanced recovery from a tenant perspective."

Originally developed in 2000, the two-building Mission Ridge Class A office campus totals 231,065 square feet of rentable space. The property was 90% leased at the time of sale with major tenants including Ensign Facility Services, McAfee, Pulte Homes, Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab and Premier Office Centers.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Capital Square Realty Acquires Greenville Medical Office Building

Capital Square Realty Advisors, a Virginia-based commercial real estate investment firm launched earlier this year and led by Louis Rogers, a 29-year veteran of commercial real estate investments, announced that it had acquired a 20,458-square-foot medical office building in Greenville, North Carolina. While pricing and terms of the deal were not disclosed, the ECU Physicians Medical Office Building was listed for sale in May 2013 by Turner Financial Group for $4 million.

"This medical office building is leased on a 10-year term to one of the largest medical practices in Eastern North Carolina and is well located in a busy medical district," said Louis Rogers, founder and chief executive officer of Capital Square Realty Advisors. "As a nation, Americans are growing older and demanding greater healthcare services such as those provided to the residents of Eastern North Carolina in this facility."

Built in 1989 and renovated in 2008, the ECU Physicians Medical Office Building is 100% occupied with a new 10 year lease with ECU Physicians, a credit tenant backed by East Carolina University which has a Moody's rating of Aa2 and a S&P rating of AA-. Located in the heart of Greenville's vibrant Medical District, the office can be expanded to add approximately 6,000 square feet of space without rezoning or complex engineering. The medical center serves as the teaching hospital for the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and provides acute, intermediate, rehabilitation and outpatient health services to more than 1.4 million people in 29 counties.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Parkway Buying Thomas Properties for $1.2B

Orlando-based real estate investment trust Parkway Properties Inc. announced this week that they had agreed to acquire Los Angeles-based Thomas Properties Group Inc. in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at $1.2 billion. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Thomas Properties' shareholders will receive 0.3822 shares of newly issued Parkway common stock in exchange for each share of Thomas Properties common stock, for an implied price per share of $6.26 based on Parkway's closing stock price of $16.37 on September 4, 2013. Parkway will assume roughly $752 million of Thomas Properties' pro rata share of in-place secured debt, and provide Thomas Properties with a bridge loan totaling up to $80 million.

James A. Thomas, President and Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Properties, commented, "Our board believes that the combination with Parkway, based upon our relative net asset values, will maximize value for our shareholders, both in the near and long term. We are big believers in Parkway's long-term growth strategy of gaining critical mass with high-quality assets in targeted submarkets throughout the Sunbelt. This combination of Thomas Properties and Parkway delivers to our stockholders increased scale, improved liquidity, a strengthened balance sheet and the tax advantages of a REIT structure."

According to a CoStar report, the merger, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, includes 14 Thomas Properties office assets totaling 9.8 million square feet, including eight in the fast-growing Austin and Houston markets. The portfolio was 89% occupied as of June 30.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Apollo CRE Finance Closes $84.9M Transactions

Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. (ARI), a real estate investment trust managed by an indirect subsidiary of Apollo Global Management, LLC, announced this week that it had closed two loan transactions totaling $84.9 million. Apollo provided a $22.5 million mezzanine loan for a Pittsburgh mixed-use property and a $62.4 million whole loan for a New York City commercial building. According to a company press release, with the addition of these closing the company's 2013 investment activity year-to-date totaled $277.9 million of commercial real estate debt transactions with an underwritten weighted average IRR of approximately 14%.

"ARI continues to see interesting transactions in our core first mortgage and mezzanine lending businesses that offer attractive, risk-adjusted returns," said Scott Weiner, Chief Investment Officer of ACREFI Management, LLC, the manager of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance. "The mezzanine loan for the mixed-use property has strong, well-capitalized sponsorship. The whole loan for the residential conversion represents a highly-structured transaction in a prime location for a premier New York City real estate developer. Both transactions are structured with floating interest rates, which we believe will be beneficial to ARI in a rising interest rate environment."

The transactions include the following:

- $22.5 million mezzanine loan secured by a pledge of the equity interest in a borrower that owns a mixed-use property located in the central business district of Pittsburgh, PA and consists of a 27-story multi-tenant office building, an adjoining 616-key convention center hotel, and a 479-space underground parking garage.

- $62.4 million whole loan, which is split into a $33.0 million first mortgage and a $29.4 million mezzanine loan secured by a pledge of the equity interests in a borrower that owns an eight-story commercial building in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. The whole loan will fund the conversion of the existing building into a 12-story luxury residential condominium consisting of approximately 37,000 square feet comprising eight residential units and approximately 3,600 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.