Building and Land Technology is planning a new real estate fund, as it advertises for a new chief financial officer to handle a range of duties ”“ including structuring tax vehicles to draw foreign investors.
The Norwalk-based developer is considering an investment fund in what has been a banner 12 months for publicly traded real estate investment trusts that offer ready liquidity to investors, but which has also seen managers of private real estate funds struggle to raise cash according to multiple reports.
Publicly traded real estate investment trusts, or REITs, raised $23.6 billion in secondary stock offerings last year, the highest total in the nearly 20 years the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts has kept statistics. REITs closed the year up 28 percent, easily eclipsing the 15 percent gain by the S&P 500.
Throughout the recession, BLT has been the most active developer in Fairfield County, acquiring multiple office buildings even as its Harbor Point project rapidly mushrooms in Stamford”™s South End under the watch of CEO Carl Kuehner III and the company”™s current CFO Paul Kuehner. The neighborhood is to eventually include some 4,000 new residential units and several commercial buildings, and already has landed a number of marquee tenants for new or existing buildings in its portfolio.
BLT took over the development of Harbor Point from Antares Investment Partners, which conceived the project alongside equity investor Lubert-Adler of Philadelphia. Last fall Lubert-Adler raised half of a planned $400 million fund to buy properties laboring under troubled loans, with a New Jersey state pension fund committing $100 million.
In advertising for a new CFO, Building and Land Technology disclosed it is now considering creating its own fund, without providing details on the scale, scope or structure of a fund.
In a brief interview, Paul Kuehner said he remains Building and Land Technology”™s CFO at present, but confirmed the company is looking to hire someone as CFO to handle additional duties. He did not specify any new or additional title he might carry if that individual is hired.
Kuehner declined to discuss details on any real estate investment fund the company might be considering, or to what degree the company may solicit funds from international investors for acquisitions or projects in Fairfield County or elsewhere.
This year, New York City will attract more real estate investment dollars from companies abroad than any other city in the world, according to a University of Wisconsin survey published by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate. More than 60 percent of respondents said the U.S. offers the best potential for capital appreciation, the highest figure of any nation; in 2006, just 23 percent of respondents stated so. The association did not list smaller markets in its annual survey.
“As the fear of a double-dip recession has faded, investors are becoming more enthusiastic about the prospects for the U.S. economy and are taking aim at real estate investment opportunities,” said James Fetgatter, CEO of the association, in a prepared statement. “However, their strategy is more akin to a rifle than a shotgun. Except for multi-family housing, they are not scattering their interest throughout the U.S., but rather narrowly targeting it to New York City and Washington, D.C., to an even greater extent than in previous years.”
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