PHILADELPHIA-RAIT Financial Trust has gotten a $100 million capital infusion through ARS VI Investor I, an affiliate of Almanac Realty, to expand its real estate lending. The capital will be used for loan origination and investment, including CMBS and bridge lending.
On Oct. 17, the first $20 million of the commitment is to be funded and Andrew M. Silberstein, a partner of Almanac, will join the RAIT board. Scott Schaeffer, RAIT chairman and CEO, says, “We are seeing excellent lending opportunities and it’s time to once again grow our loan portfolio by utilizing our core commercial real estate lending platform which has been in place since RAIT was founded in 1997.”
Schaeffer called Almanac’s commitment “indicative of the strength in our platform.” He said, “We are very focused on investing in RAIT’s traditional commercial real estate lending business and we expect to deploy this capital into investments that will be accretive to both earnings and dividends.”
Silberstein, said, “RAIT is a seasoned commercial real estate lender, a market leader, and we look forward to seeing RAIT use this capital to expand its depth and reach in the market.”
The $100 million investment is to be drawn at RAIT’s discretion, subject to customary draw down conditions, over the next two years in exchange for a combination of RAIT securities including 4 million Series D stock coupons. The preferred shares will be issued in combination with warrants for up to 9,931,000 of RAIT’s common shares
RAIT Financial Trust is an internally-managed real estate investment trust that provides debt financing to owners of commercial real estate and invests directly into commercial real estate properties located throughout the United States. Also, the firm is a property manager of real estate-related assets.
Almanac was originally known as Rothschild Realty. Since 1996, Almanac Realty Investors’ primary investment activity has consisted of private placement investments with public and private real estate operating companies.
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