Lastly, Karlin provided Newmark Merrill Mountain States, a unit of Newmark Merrill Cos., with a $5 million senior-credit facility to help fund the acquisition of Twin Peaks Mall, a 466,838-square-foot regional mall located in Longmont, CO, approximately 25 miles north of downtown Denver. The acquisition price for the 50.2-acre site represents a significant discount to the 2007 purchase price of $33.6 million; the borrower, which had been managing the fully enclosed mall since 2010, provided meaningful equity.

Sandy Siegal, CEO and chairman of Newmark Merrill Cos., tells GlobeSt.com that the mall was built in the mid-1980s and that the seller was “a company that was primarily in the industrial space and had acquired the hotel basically as a redevelopment play, and with the turn of the market, they realized that they were not best equipped to turn around this mall.”

Matt Schwab, co-founder and managing director of Karlin, tells GlobeSt.com that the acquisitions and financing transactions are in line with Karlin’s overall operating strategy. “We’re strategically positioned because we have, as part of our investment firm, access to over $1 billion of unleveraged capital, and our mission is to provide capital for real estate both on the equity and the debt side. That lines up terrifically in this marketplace, where you need capital that is flexible.”

Schwab adds that Karlin has a fairly streamlined investment process that allows the company to move very quickly to both acquire and finance deals that others may not be able to do with the current strain in the capital markets. “So, in each of these deals, there’s a story behind them that plays out that theme. They’re quality assets that have capital structure problems or they have a need for the borrower or seller to execute quickly, and this is a running theme going through all of these transactions.”

Karlin intends to continue growing its current platform, Schwab continues. “We started in 2008 and have grown from zero to close to $.5 billion dollars in acquisitions and financing. We hope to double our size in the next three years. We’re really excited about what we’re doing in the marketplace. We’re building a quality portfolio on the equity and debt side, and we’re thrilled to do more.”

As GlobeSt.com previously reported, in February Mesa West Capital provided Karlin Real Estate with a $41.2-million first mortgage loan cross collateralized by properties in Scottsdale, AZ and Portland, OR, and in September 2011, Karlin acquired Willamette Marketplace a 61,604-square-foot office and retail center in the Portland suburb of West Linn.