But now it is midyear and like clockwork, InvenTrust has closed on the sale of its student housing platform. According to a 8-K filing it made with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, it reported that:

Following certain adjustments and the repayment of related debt, in each case pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, the company received net cash consideration, after transaction costs, of approximately $845 million, $9.9 million of which was deposited into escrow and relates to post closing obligations, the majority of which is held pending the expected completion of a development property in the third quarter of 2016.

A Very Flexible Fannie Mae Credit Facility

More details about the transaction then emerged when Walker & Dunlop's Brendan Coleman and Will Baker announced they had secured $672 million to partially finance the acquisition.

They financed the acquisition through Fannie Mae's Credit Facility execution, a very flexible loan structure the GSE rolled out several years ago to support large, portfolio-backed transactions.

In this case, the credit facility product was particularly apt because it was necessary to tailor the debt to meet specific requests of the buyers.

“This is a fantastic portfolio but it did have its challenges,” Coleman tells GlobeSt.com. “Many of the properties were in various stages of leasing, some didn't have any debt, there was one property still under construction that they wanted to include in the financing.”

The fourteen properties that didn't have debt were able to receive better terms because of the facility's flexibility and Fannie Mae's willingness to work with the team, Baker told GlobeSt.com. Another feature of the facility: it lets the borrower gain access to the equity built up in the portfolio, similar to a supplemental loan.

BETHESDA, MD--At the start of the year, Oak Brook, IL-based InvenTrust Properties Corp. announced it was selling off its student housing platform--University House Community Group--to become a pure-play multi-tenant retail REIT. The buyer of the platform was a partnership among Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, GIC Pte. Ltd. and the Scion Group LLC.

For CPPIB and GIC, the deal was a foot in the door into the student housing space. And they would be entering the sector with an indisputably high-quality portfolio: 18 stabilized student housing communities and four in development, all close to major university campuses and comprising nearly 13,000 beds. Under the terms of the agreement, Scion would manage and operate the portfolio, and own 5% of UHC, with CPPIB and GIC each owning 47.5%.

The deal was valued at approximately $1.4 billion at the time although under the terms of the purchase agreement, the final net proceeds of the sale was to be determined at closing, which was expected to happen in midyear.

Little was heard of the transaction in the intervening months even as InvenTrust continued to execute on its long-term strategy. In April, for example, InvenTrust finalized the spin off of Highlands REIT, a wholly-owned subsidiary that InvenTrust formed to hold its non-core assets.

But now it is midyear and like clockwork, InvenTrust has closed on the sale of its student housing platform. According to a 8-K filing it made with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, it reported that:

Following certain adjustments and the repayment of related debt, in each case pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, the company received net cash consideration, after transaction costs, of approximately $845 million, $9.9 million of which was deposited into escrow and relates to post closing obligations, the majority of which is held pending the expected completion of a development property in the third quarter of 2016.

A Very Flexible Fannie Mae Credit Facility

More details about the transaction then emerged when Walker & Dunlop's Brendan Coleman and Will Baker announced they had secured $672 million to partially finance the acquisition.

They financed the acquisition through Fannie Mae's Credit Facility execution, a very flexible loan structure the GSE rolled out several years ago to support large, portfolio-backed transactions.

In this case, the credit facility product was particularly apt because it was necessary to tailor the debt to meet specific requests of the buyers.

“This is a fantastic portfolio but it did have its challenges,” Coleman tells GlobeSt.com. “Many of the properties were in various stages of leasing, some didn't have any debt, there was one property still under construction that they wanted to include in the financing.”

The fourteen properties that didn't have debt were able to receive better terms because of the facility's flexibility and Fannie Mae's willingness to work with the team, Baker told GlobeSt.com. Another feature of the facility: it lets the borrower gain access to the equity built up in the portfolio, similar to a supplemental loan.