the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
Net Lease Q&A: McDowell Sees Payoff in Focus on Investment Grade Tenants
In a luncheon Q&A session with Suzann D. Silverman, editor-in-chief of Commercial Property News, at Monday’s Net Lease Summit in New York, CapLease Inc. chairman & CEO Paul McDowell (pictured) said he is glad that his firm has kept its focus on working with investment grade tenants, given that the stressed economy will likely put pressure on below-investment-grade companies. CapLease has a diversified portfolio of net lease assets, with a $2.1 billion investment grade portfolio that consists of $1.6 billion of owned properties, $291 million in mortgage loans, and $170 million in structured securities. McDowell said there has been a…
First Industrial Extends JVs with CalSTRS
Less than two weeks after acquiring an $82 million real estate portfolio, Chicago-based First Industrial Realty Trust has extended its agreements for its joint ventures with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System(CalSTRS), the second-largest public pension fund in the nation with a $160 billion portfolio. CB Richard Ellis Investors is the advisor to CalSTRS on the ventures. First Industrial and CalSTRS have extended the terms of all five joint ventures through December 2018: the $1.6 billion Development and Repositioning JV (FirstCal 1), the $1.6 billion Strategic Land and Development JV (FirstCal 3), the $475 million FirstCal Europe JV, the $285…
Bernanke, Paulson Stress Urgency in Passing Bailout Plan
Speaking before the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did their best to urge Congress to act sooner rather than later on their proposed $700 million bailout plan. In separate remarks, both stressed the damage to the overall U.S. economy and impact on American taxpayers should Congress delay action. “The market turmoil we are experiencing today poses great risk to U.S. taxpayers. When the financial system doesn’t work as it should, Americans’ personal savings, and the ability of consumers and businesses to finance spending, investment and job creation are threatened,” Paulson (pictured)…
DLA Piper Summit 2008 Opens with Zell in Fine Form
The opening keynote session of “What Comes Next: Opportunities, Risks and Rewards,” the 2008 DLA Piper Global Real Estate Summit held Tuesday in Chicago, featured real estate uber-deal-maker Sam Zell (pictured) of Equity Group Investments in his usual pungent form. “This entire crisis could and should be placed on the shoulders of the accounting profession,” said Zell. Despite the many grievous mistakes made by other participants that contributed to the market’s current mess, he insisted that “without fair-market-value accounting, this whole situation would not have reached its current level.” Zell said that earlier this year, he had in fact suggested…
Q&A: Condos Still a Stormy Sector in South Florida Public Relations
South Florida may have dodged some of the recent hurricanes, but it is still experiencing turbulence, especially in the condo market. Has it hit bottom yet? CPN associate editor Amanda Marsh spoke with Peter Fitzgerald, COO of the The RADCO Cos., about what in the sector’s forecast. CPN: Where does South Florida’s condominium market stand right now? Have you seen any recovery, or is it still very volatile? Fitzgerald: The South Florida condominium market remains in a state of flux with values continuing to fall and a demand/supply imbalance that will take years to correct. Miami, obviously, has the biggest…
Trikona Capital, SachsenFonds Cut Infrastructure Development Deal
Trikona Capital Ltd. has taken a third step in its partnership with SachsenFonds Holdings GmbH, based just outside of Munich in Haar, Germany, with the closing of a $156 million deal. The agreement calls for Trikona, a top fund management firm for institutional investment in Indian infrastructure and real estate, and SachsenFonds to invest over $70 million in four new projects involving infrastructure development in the economically blossoming country. Trikona and SachsenFonds have not disclosed extensive details regarding the infrastructure projects, including specific locations. However, according to a report by real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle, funds that are…
Olympia Group Takes Evergreen Mountain, Awaits OK for $100M Casino
Las Vegas-headquartered Olympia Group has acquired a controlling interest in Rumford, Maine-based Evergreen Mountain Enterprises L.L.C., the company that has proposed the development of the Evergreen Mountain Resort & Casino in Oxford County, Maine. While Olympia has taken control of the project developer–a transaction for which financial details have not been disclosed–voters of the State of Maine are still in control of the casino’s fate. Referendum Question 2, which would legalized the presence of a casino in Oxford County, must pass in November before creation of the premier resort casino can move forward. If all goes as planned, $100 million…
Latest DLA Piper Survey Finds Record Level of Pessimism
Bring on the bears. The brand-new 2008 State of the Market Survey from DLA Piper shows “a new record level of bearish sentiment,” 90 percent, among the survey’s 424 respondents, all C-level and other senior executives in commercial real estate. More specifically, in a last-minute supplementary survey following the Fannie-Freddie/Lehman Brothers/Merrill Lynch/AIG crisis, a majority of respondents, 60 percent, said this near meltdown of the capital markets has surpassed the 1989-to-early-1990s savings and loan debacle as the event having the greatest impact on commercial real estate in the past 20 years. Further, a strong majority of respondents don’t believe that…
Terrorists Blow Up Islamabad Marriott
Calling it “this senseless tragedy,” Bill Marriott, chairman & CEO of Marriott International, posted a deeply personal response to the tragic bombing of the Pakistan Marriott on Sept. 20.At approximately 7:00 p.m. local time, he reported, a large truck pulled up to the security checkpoint of Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan and blew up. The blast destroyed the front of the hotel and ruptured a gas line, which caused a large fire to break out.”This senseless tragedy and the profound loss of life has left me greatly saddened. My heart goes out to those who’ve been injured and the families…
Financial Market Update: After the Closing Bell-Monday, Sept. 22
The age of the investment bank is over. Once upon a time, a bank was a bank. Then the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated the banking world into deposit and investment realms, and even though Glass-Steagall was repealed by a deregulation-happy Congress in 1999, established investment banks at the time declined to get into the business of providing checking and savings accounts to ordinary folk. Now the two companies left standing after the great American investment bank bloodletting last week, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have thought better of their reticence to be deposit banks. The two petitioned the Federal…