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Benefit Street Partners L.L.C. (“BSP” or the “Company”) today announced the closing of a $120 million floating-rate senior loan to Silver Star Properties REIT (“Silver Star”), intended to facilitate the liquidation of Silver Star’s legacy real estate portfolio. Silver Star expects to sell all current assets within their portfolio and subsequently acquire self-storage properties and transition to a self-storage REIT._x000D_
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The 4.2 million square foot portfolio totals 27 properties across multiple asset classes including office (24), retail (2), and industrial (1), located throughout the Dallas, Houston and San Antonio MSAs. BSP’s loan has a two-year term with no extension options. RMWC, a boutique private lender, provided a co-terminus second mortgage loan for $15 million at closing, for a combined loan of $135 million. Raymond James Real Estate Investment Banking acted as exclusive financial advisor to Silver Star._x000D_
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BSP allocated the loan across its commercial real estate platform, including Franklin BSP Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: FBRT)._x000D_
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Michael Comparato, Head of Commercial Real Estate for BSP, commented: “The closing of this complicated transaction is a testament to the flexibility and creativity of the BSP CRE group and another example of the team’s ability to provide a beneficial outcome in a difficult commercial real estate capital markets environment. Office is clearly an out of favor asset class, but we believe the cross collateralization of 27 assets with a short duration liquidation business plan mitigates longer term office risk. BSP remains active in the current market environment, strategically adding loans to our real estate portfolio that offer compelling risk-adjusted returns.”_x000D_
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Steven Fischler, Chief Investment Officer and Co-Owner of RMWC, added, “This loan is another example of RMWC’s ability to write special situation subordinate loans across all property types. An inventory loan on office, retail, and industrial assets in three different cities is not something many lenders are capable of handling. We appreciate the opportunity to co-lend with BSP again and look forward to watching Silver Star successfully execute their business plan of selling the properties and becoming a self-storage focused company.”
Forward for Specialty Finance
