Markland Pays Over $87M for Citibank Portfolio

NEW YORK CITY-An Dublin-based investment group has purchased a portfolio of 47 Citibank branches scattered across the New York City metro area. The purchased price is $87.5 million, according to sources close to the deal. As GlobeSt.com exclusively reported in October, the sale-leaseback transaction was on the market through locally based Newmark Knight Frank, and was comprised of 157,312 sf.

Savills Granite, a locally based investment banking firm, who represented the buyer, would not comment on the identity of the investment group. However, Kenneth Zakin, senior managing director of NKF, who headed the sales team, and worked in cooperation with Citigroup Global Markets, Citigroup’s investment banking division, confirms to GlobeSt.com that the buyer is Dublin-based Markland Holdings Ltd., a company backed by Irish developers Paddy Kelly and Sean Mulryan.

Citibank

Of the 47 properties, which range in size from 2,000 sf to 8,000 sf, 20 are in Nassau, eight are in Suffolk, three are in Queens, four are in Brooklyn, three are in the Bronx, three are in Statin Island, five are in Westchester and one is in Upper Manhattan. Markland Holdings has agreed to lease the properties back to Citigroup Global Markets Inc. on a 15-year lease.

As GlobeSt.com previously reported, there was no asking price for the portfolio. Initial bids were collected in early October. Zakin previously told GlobeSt.com that the buildings were offered as a package, as individual properties, or broken up into several smaller portfolios.

“Foreign investors like the attractive yields that US properties can achieve for them,” Borja Sierra, executive managing director of Savills Granite, tells GlobeSt.com. “In addition, Citi plans to stay in these branches for a long time so the buyer of this portfolio will generate a steady stream of rental income within strong retail locations.” Sierra says that the US property market is a big draw for foreign capital and that this deal “reinforces how offshore investors are still eying large-scale deals here.”