AFR Buying Spree Continues with Call Center

SIOUX FALLS, SD-American Financial Realty Trust is acquiring a 158,000-sf call center here for $24.5 million in cash and debt, according to SEC filings. The sellers is a a subsidiary of HSBC Holdings that has committed to occupy the entire building on an effective net basis through November 2013.The purchase price equates to $155 per sf and includes the assumption of $15.8 million in fixed rate debt. AFRT chief executive Nicholas Schorsch says HSBC Card Services Inc. is a new client for AFR, a REIT focused on acquiring and leasing properties occupied by financial institutions. The call center is only the latest in a flurry of acquisition activity following its May sale of 16.7 million shares for net proceeds of $242.9 million. Last week, AFR paid Regions Financial Corp. and affiliates $109 million for 111 properties aggregating 3 million sf. In an SEC filing, AFR says the portfolio is 43% occupied and includes both office buildings and bank branches, located principally in the Southeastern United States. Regions Bank occupies about 1 million sf, or 33% of the portfolio, and has leased its space on a triple-net basis for 15 years. AFR intends to sell 37 non-core and substantially vacant properties in the portfolio “as expeditiously as possible following our purchase,” according to the SEC filing.In early June, it paid $27 million to One Bank, N.A., a subsidiary of Citizens Financial Group, Inc., for 26 bank branches and small office buildings in the Northern US. which Charter One Bank and Citizens Bank will continue to lease. In May, is paid $20.3 million for the 234,115-sf Bank of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The 19-story property includes a five level on-site parking garage and is 87% leased, with Bank of Oklahoma representing approximately 40% of the property’s income and occupying 92,280 sf through December 2012. Prior to these acquisitions, AFR earlier this year acquired 22 properties aggregating just under 1.3 million sf for $237 million. Still to come this year is another $140 million in acquisitions, including one individual building, another office portfolio and at least 80 vacant bank branches, according to the company’s SEC filings. The planned purchases include a 532,000-sf office building in the Southeastern US that is 85% occupied for $38.5 million; a 70% interest in a 535,000-sf office building in the Midwest that if 92% leased for $20.3 million, and; through formulated price contracts, 80 or more vacant bank branches for between $60 million and $80 million.