Finance

Sale-leaseback deal volume got off to a slow start in January, not a surprising development in light of the generally sluggish investment sales market. According to Real Capital Analytics Inc., sale-leaseback deals totaled only $183 million for the month. That figure represents only a fraction of the volume tallied for January 2008, when Real Capital Analytics tallied $790 million.In the biggest sale-leaseback deal reported so far this year, Gilead Sciences Inc. disclosed last Thursday that it had completed the $137.5 million acquisition of a 163,000-square-foot office building and 30 adjacent acres in Foster City, Calif. The transaction, a partial sale-leaseback,…

Independent executive compensation consulting firm Steven Hall & Partners and executive search firm Equinox Partners have found that those at the top of the masthead at REITs in the United States have not escaped the real estate industry’s stock woes. The results of a study by the two New York City-based companies show that, at the median, individual REIT CEOs have seen the value of their equity holdings nosedive by about 49 percent over the last year. The credit crisis kicked off the downward spiral in real estate across the country in 2007 and it’s been a rocky road ever since….

Despite the departure of its CEO, the slashing of a dividend payment, a halt to new development plans and a workforce reduction, it remains largely business as usual as industrial REIT ProLogis works to straighten out its financial situation and rework a massive maturing debt load.Denver-headquartered ProLogis, the world’s largest industrial warehouse developer, remains active in the leasing business and has even been able to get its hands on hundreds of millions in financing as of late, neither of which is any small feat in today’s market.The company was stung badly by the credit crunch last fall. By the time…

The equity markets seemed to be headed for positive territory on Tuesday, or at least they did in the morning, but slumped in the afternoon. In the end, the Dow Jones index was down a minuscule 25.41 points for the day, or 0.3 percent. The S&P 500 nudged up slightly for the day, 0.18 percent, and the Nasdaq likewise exhibited a small gain of 0.5 percent. In a refreshing bit of real estate news, J.P. Morgan Chase, which swallowed Washington Mutual and its many, many retail branches last year, has said that it’s going to spend a fair amount of…

Real estate brokerage and advisory firm Calkain Cos. has established a new division aimed at aiding clients in dealing with adverse investment situations on net lease properties. The group, dubbed Calkain Opportunity Services, will be headed up by Todd Harrison (pictured), who will serve as managing director of the new entity. Calkain said it formed the division as a result of the increase in debt restructurings, failed investments and transaction-related litigation in the current environment of economic turmoil. “For those…. involved in less than ideal situations, Calkain will be able to formulate a plan on how to exit their challenging…

The credit crunch that has gripped the U.S. and the world during the last 18 months seems to be giving momentum to a property investment vehicle, the Delaware Statutory Trust (DST), that allows as many as 100 investors, and sometimes more, to buy commercial real estate and reap the benefits of a 1031 exchange. Many tenant-in-common, or TIC, sponsors are increasingly turning to the DST model to buy properties, according to Grant Conness (pictured), president of 1031 Alternatives Group, L.L.C. “We’ve seen an uptick in this (DST) activity,” Conness told CPN, and today’s capital constrained environment is the major reason…

The Dow Jones index took something of a dive yesterday, possibly because of ill tidings from the likes of Time Warner and Intel, or the anticipation of bad job market numbers, or maybe because it was time to yo-yo back to roughly where the market started at the beginning of the year. In any case, the Dow was down 245.40 points, or 2.72 percent, while the S&P 500 lost 3 percent exactly and the Nasdaq lost 3.23 percent.Jobless numbers from the federal government will be released tomorrow, but private assessments of the increasing scope of the problem are already out….

Orlando-based CNL Financial Group and Sydney’s Macquarie Group have joined forces for the first time to establish a new global REIT, CNL Macquarie Global Growth Trust Inc., which will pursue opportunities in just about every sector of commercial real estate in various areas around the world. The partners can afford to think big, as the proposed total offering for the REIT is $1.5 billion. Timing is everything and CNL and Macquarie believe that now–in the midst of what has essentially become a global meltdown of the real estate market–is just the right moment to lay the groundwork for a new…

The equity markets dropped considerably Monday morning, but then yo-yoed around for the rest of the day–small fluctuations, really–and ended up slightly down, for the first time in four trading sessions and the first time this year. The Dow Jones index dropped 76.7 points, or 0.85 percent, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.35 percent and the Nasdaq lost 0.49 percent. Investors might be buying stocks (sometimes), but consumers aren’t buying so many cars. In December, sales of GM cars were down 31 percent compared with the same month last year, while Ford sales were down 32 percent. Toyota suffered a…

Student housing REIT Education Realty Trust Inc. has closed a $222 million secured credit facility, courtesy of Fannie Mae DUS lender Red Mortgage Capital Inc., and is wasting precious little time making use of the proceeds. Drawing about $198 million in initial loans under the facility, Education Realty paid off $185 million of secured mortgage debt scheduled to mature in July of this year, and used the remaining $13 million to pay down its corporate revolving credit facility and to address other working capital demands. The initial group of loans includes five-year variable rate loans totaling $50 million, in addition…