FORT LAUDERDALE, FL- Global Fund Investments and MMG Equity Partners have acquired a mortgage on the Village Shoppes at Pine Plaza, a 234,169-square-foot shopping center in Sunrise, Florida, west of Fort Lauderdale, which is owned by a subsidiary of the Fort Lauderdale-based Stiles Corp. named SCP-Capri Pine Plaza. Stiles had purchased the Sunrise shopping center in partnership with Capri Capital Partners of Chicago for nearly $24 million on July 31, 2007.

John Strzalka, an executive with Global Fund Investments, based in Miami Beach, declined to give the amount of the note, but the original loan from Compass Bank was for $18.2 million. The property was assessed at $16.26 million in 2010. The sale of the mortgage on the property took place on April 29^th, but Global Realty & Management FL, which represents the joint-venture, took over leasing and management for the 24-year-old shopping center on June 1^st. It is anchored by a Winn-Dixie supermarket, Sunrise Cinema and Family Dollar.

Strzalka says that Global Fund Investments and MMG Equity Partners plan to foreclose on the Village Shoppes, which is 64% occupied, this summer. The low occupancy rate, he says, is not due to the center losing anchor tenants, but the loss of small-shop tenants.

“We are actively pursuing the purchase of more mortgages,” says Strzalka. “This is the third one Global Fund Investments has bought in the past nine months,” he says. The company started in April of 2007. Doran Valero, Global Fund Investment’s managing partner,  is the former COO and president of North Miami Beach’s Equity One, a public company.

Among the other assets which Global Fund Investments has acquired over the last year include the 174,000-square-foot-Crossroads Square in Jacksonville, anchored by Floor & D