Commercial/Multifamily Briefs Sept. 24, 2020
SitusAMC Acquires Cohen Financial’s Servicing and Asset Management Platform from Truist
SitusAMC Holdings Corp., New York, acquired the third-party loan servicing and asset management platform of Cohen Financial, a Truist Financial division.
The acquisition, which included Cohen’s servicing and asset management clients and 120-plus employees, expanded SitusAMC’s U.S. primary servicing, asset management and special servicing portfolio to nearly 10,000 loans representing more than $130 billion in total unpaid principal balances.
Truist will retain Cohen’s Debt Advisory and Placement platform, which it will migrate under the Grandbridge brand. Truist will remain a banking partner for SitusAMC and its servicing clients.
SitusAMC will integrate the Cohen servicing and asset management platform and employees into its Servicing and Asset Management group. As of August 31, Cohen’s servicing portfolio included nearly 6,900 loans representing more than $34 billion in unpaid principal balances. The combined group will operate as a single consolidated offering under the SitusAMC brand led by SitusAMC’s existing business unit leadership team of Tim Mazzetti, CMB, Head of U.S. Servicing and Asset Management, and Head of Client Service Delivery Dean Wheeler.
Verus Mortgage Capital Launches Verus Commercial Real Estate Finance
Verus Mortgage Capital, New York, designated a new division, Verus Commercial Real Estate Finance to pursue origination opportunities in commercial real estate credit. VCREF is a balance sheet commercial real estate direct lender that will provide capital for a wide range of real estate asset classes nationwide.
VCREF’s senior team includes Kenneth Witkin and Ricardo Koenigsberger as Co-Presidents and Anthony R. Iervolino as Managing Director. VCREF will initially specialize in offering bridge loans for acquisitions, refinancing, restructurings, discounted payoffs, lease-up stabilizations and other special situations. Asset types include: Condo Inventory, Hotels/Hospitality, Industrial, Luxury Residential, Investment Properties, Mixed-Use, Mobile Home Parks, Multifamily, Offices, Parking, Retail, and Self-Storage. VCREF’s financial products include Senior Loans, B-pieces, Mezzanine Loans, and Preferred Equity. Targeted loans range in size from $1million to $25 million.
Aimco Forms Apartment Income REIT
Apartment Investment and Management Co., Denver, announced plans to separate its business into two separate and distinct publicly traded companies, Apartment Income REIT and Aimco.
AIR, a newly formed self-managed real estate investment trust will provide a simple and transparent way to invest in the multifamily sector: ownership with public market liquidity of a diversified portfolio of apartment communities, with low financial leverage, limited execution risk and sector low management costs. Aimco will retain its growing business of developing and redeveloping apartment communities while also pursuing other accretive transactions.
As part of its longer-term strategy to reduce financial leverage and rebalance its capital allocation among target markets, Aimco also announced it entered into a ten-year joint venture with a passive institutional investor to own jointly 12 multifamily properties with 4,051 units in California. The properties were valued at $2.4 billion, or $592,000 per unit, equivalent to an implied NOI cap rate of approximately 4.2 percent and an implied free cash flow cap rate of approximately 4.0 percent (based upon NOI and free cash flow annualized for the six months ended June 30, 2020). The properties secure non-recourse property debt of $1.22 billion with a weighted average interest rate of 3.17% and have an implied equity value of $1.18 billion.
