Bison Financial Group looks back on 2013 as Q4 is already here…. all things considered we are very encouraged by the year to date as investors across the entire risk spectrum have woken up from a 5-year nap and are hungry for viable, risk adjusted opportunities to deploy capital.
Bison’s recent closings include:
- Portfolio of class C apartments in St. Pete refinanced via FHA at rate of 2.65% on a 35/35, non-recourse – read more
- DPO on a portfolio of class C apartments in Tampa Bay – helped client buy his debt for 50 cents on the dollar – we found a small local bank to refi him at 5.5% without bringing new capital to the table – read more
- Brought in a private equity fund as promotable preferred equity on a 216-unit value added, class B apartment community in Virginia (this was the 3rd deal with the same Sponsor and same Private Equity group)
- Arranged a $4.6 million CMBS loan on a 2-tenant class AA retail property in Miami with massive cash out for our developer client; it closed during the bond market meltdown in June at 5.5% fixed for 10 years. We delivered loan proceeds of $1,335 psf based on rents and pass-thrus nearing $200 psf. Considering the cash out event and the desire for non-recourse, fixed rate financing we shopped this to a large universe of lenders to find the best blend of proceeds, rate & terms – read more
Currently spending time on the following:
- Financing income producing CRE with long-term, fixed rate, non-recourse loans… we have been in the game for nearly 30 years and can do this in our sleep
- Advising on roll-up strategy of underperforming, large, full service hotels – our client plans to buy $100+ million per year over the next 3-5 years
- Advising on development and roll-up of cell phone tower assets
- Litigation Support / Expert Witness in CRE controversies (maturity defaults, bankruptcy, etc.) – We just concluded our 6th expert witness case since 2012
- As a principal we are investing in CRE that is NNN leased to high credit quality tenants – we have a way to bring 100+% funding to merchant developers that do sale leasebacks and build-to-suits (we especially like opportunities to invest in student housing at growing 4-year universities) – read more
- We are sourcing debt and equity investment opportunities for a private equity fund capitalized by immigrant investors under the EB-5 program. Hyper-focused on construction / redevelopment opportunities that create / retain lots of jobs. So far we like build-to-suits NNN leased to high quality counterparties, hotels and ALFs the best. We are somewhat open to other investment ideas as long as there is strong job creation.
- As a principal we are part of a team that is developing high return on investment renewable energy projects that use waste streams like Municipal Solid Waste (lots and lots of household garbage) and medical waste to make baseload electricity for sale to the grid or to a “behind the meter” investment grade off-taker. After spending almost 30 years in CRE… this is the opportunity we are most excited about and how we see spending a substantial amount of our time over the next 30 years of our careers
Life and this crazy business world of ours is an adventure…. let’s get a dialogue going and see how we might be able to assist in getting transactions closed.