Judy and John DeRight, looking to diversify their investment portfolios, have retained Angus Cartwright, Jr. to identify prospective real estate acquisitions. Mr. Cartwright has four potential properties that he feels merit an in-depth financial analysis. The case provides an opportunity to examine the various components of real estate return--cash flow, tax benefits, and futures--and measure the profitability of a proposed investment through the calculation of net present value, internal rate of return, and capitalization rate.
Although inexperienced in real estate, Edward Alexander hopes in June 2013 that youthful enthusiasm and an $240,000 in savings and inheritance will help him enter the real estate business. His experience chronicles the process of finding, evaluating, and acquiring a four-unit brownstone in need of renovation in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. The case also identifies the various players in the process. A rewritten version of an earlier case
The case involves repositioning an old 6-story warehouse in Pittsburgh and many of the issues of rehabilitation and selecting and managing the development team especially in a world of capital market uncertainty. The case also demonstrates the alignment of interests of the players, the construction process and the various methods available to contract with the general contractor including lump sum, cost-plus and guaranteed maximum price.
Busse Corporate Center's largest tenant recently declared bankruptcy, leaving the building 38% occupied and significantly overleveraged. In a depressed suburban Chicago office market, Marisa Sanchez, the leasing agent, has to negotiate lease proposals with three prospective tenants to try to fill the vacant space. Meanwhile, the building's owner, Collins Properties, must decide with its equity partner whether to continue funding the building's losses while trying to lease the vacant space, restructure the debt, or default on the loan and turn the building over to its lenders. The decision is made more complicated by Collins' use of a Commercial Mortgage Backed Security (CMBS) Loan, which involves multiple parties, ambiguous relationships, and bifurcated responsibilities.
On September 25, 2002, Peter Anderson was due to meet with Morgan Stanley in ten minutes. Anderson had been the finance director of Canary Wharf Group (CWG) since Paul Reichmann and a group of investors had repurchased Canary Wharf in 1995. Anderson had joined Olympia & York in 1989 to finance Canary Wharf and had struggled through the bankruptcy of the project and its parent company, Olympia & York. He had stayed with Reichmann through those difficult years and worked with him to buy back the project from the banks. Largely due to Anderson's ability to raise the capital necessary for Canary Wharf to fund its growth, the project was now universally acclaimed as hugely successful. Anderson had now invested over half his professional life in Canary Wharf and he was anxious to find a solution to the conflicting objectives of the CWG.
Wil Cardon is the third-generation steward of his family's real estate land development business. He grapples with issues of business structure, intergenerational business, compensation, and family values. This case includes in-depth discussion of the land development business in the Southwest.
Doral Costa is a proposed 277,803 square foot Class A office park development in Miami, FL. Trammell Crow Co. would like to develop this office park in joint venture with a partner. Celia Cabrera, the acquisitions partner at Titan Associates, a large real estate institutional advisory firm, must decide whether to recommend participation in this development to her client, QRS, a public pension fund. Celia must evaluate this location, the Southern Florida office market, the proposed building design, the lease-up and financial projections, the economic terms of the deal, and the potential partner to make a decision.
Starwood Hotels, the world's largest REIT, is interested in acquiring an underperforming hotel in the Pacific Northwest. Steve Goldman, Starwood's VP of acquisitions and development, is wondering how much to pay for the property and how to reposition it.
CBL & Associates is trying to decide whether to go ahead with the development of a 790,000 square-foot power center with retailers such as Home Depot and Barnes & Noble. The costs are such that the developer needs to renegotiate its land acquisition price. Then the project must be presented to its board of directors for approval.
Although inexperienced in real estate, Edward Alexander hopes in June 1999 that youthful enthusiasm and an $80,000 inheritance will help him enter the real estate business. His experience chronicles the process of finding, evaluating, and acquiring a four-unit brownstone in need of renovation in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. The case also identifies the various players in the process. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Cameron Sawyer, CEO of Sawyer & Co., seeks financing for a shopping center he is developing in Moscow. The case describes the opportunities and challenges of doing development in Russia.
Anne Shea, assistant vice president at the Curators' Fund (The Fund), is responsible for investing roughly $80 million in real-estate assets. Less than three years ago, Anne invested $40 million into a commingled fund run by AMB Institutional Realty Advisors, Inc., a leading pension fund advisor and asset manager. She had been pleased with The Fund's relationship with AMB; investing with AMB provided a cost-effective, value-added means for The Fund to directly own property. Recently, AMB proposed to consolidate all the properties under its management into a REIT and to take the new REIT public. Anne faces a decision: consent to the roll-up by exchanging her shares in the commingled fund for shares in the REIT, or sever ties with AMB by liquidating her position in the commingled fund at a price equal to the fair market value of the assets before the roll-up and public offering. In addition to the focus on REITs, qualitative issues in the case include the prevalence of conflicts-of-interest in most aspects of the highly fragmented real estate industry. The mechanics of a consolidation, the valuation of a management business, and the concept of "franchise value" are also addressed.
On October 23, 1998, Bud Lake leafed through his files on property markets in Asia. Lake was responsible for real-estate investments at an aggressive and eclectic investment fund with total assets of $1.5 billion--up from $400 million at its start in 1994. As the fund grew, Lake found himself scrambling to deploy his allotted 25% into real estate. For several months, he had been finding it difficult to buy U.S. properties. Recently, Lake had invested $30 million in a European "vulture fund," his first foray outside of the U.S. property market. Now Lake was taking a hard look at Asia, just as the lure of collapsing property values and $600 to $800 billion of troubled real-estate loans in the region was leading to unprecedented interest by U.S. real-estate firms. In a moment, he would hear a presentation from Jack Wong and Jason Biller, young entrepreneurs who were looking for a $25 million investment to get their new fund, Asia Property Ltd., off the ground. In addition, Lake has explored other options, such as buying the stock of a publicly traded Asian real-estate company.
Describes a real estate development project in Cambridge, MA and evaluates the market, financial, and design issues in this $20 million mixed-use property.
In February 1998, developers Ted Leonard and Charlie Sexton are attempting to acquire and develop a large multifamily site in Maryland, north of Washington, D.C. They are attempting to win financing and government approvals to develop a new kind of product for the market based on "new urbanism" precepts created by their architect, Andres Duany. They must convince their banker, city officials, and local brokers and contractors that their traditional neighborhood development plan is socially and economically viable.
A developer attempts to get into the elderly housing business. The case reviews the various elderly housing options, how they differ from one another, and how the industry differs from other types of real estate.
In 1984, Mortimer Zuckerman and Ed Linde, through their firm, Boston Properties (BP), acquired land in Concord, MA to build a 147,000-square-foot, first-class suburban office building. BP proceeded to go through the permitting and approval process with the town and was ready to commence construction when in August 1988, the state, after considerable lobbying from historic and environmental groups, delayed the project by requiring an environmental impact statement. Environmental groups from around the country continued to organize against BP's development along with a nearby affordable housing development. While the project was delayed, the real estate market collapsed. But by the spring of 1993, the market was beginning to recover and BP had received all necessary permits. Zuckerman and Linde had to decide whether to proceed with the development or sell to the environmental group opposing them, and if they were to sell, at what price.
In May 1996, Henry Bower, an asset manager for a real estate adviser, Medcem, has to negotiate the details of a lease after signing a letter of intent with a high technology company, Defentek, Inc. Defentek, Inc. is a fast-growing company with limited net worth that is dependent on the government as a government contractor. Defentek, Inc. would be taking a large block of space in a recently acquired Class A suburban office building outside of Washington, D.C., which has had a history of problem tenants in a problem market that is now somewhat improving. Henry must determine a negotiating strategy and take a position on the various issues raised by the tenant and the tenant's lawyer.