Briar Capital Real Estate Fund closed a new $2.2 million commercial real estate loan in Atlanta to a steel framing manufacturing company. The Briar loan is designed to help exercise a real estate purchase option under a sale leaseback transaction that occurred because of a previous bankruptcy filing and subsequent.
Introduced to this prospect initially in 2019 then again in 2021 and 2024, Briar Capital Real Estate Fund stayed in touch and stepped in quickly when called upon to underwrite and close the transaction to meet an ambitious year-end deadline. Rather than base its loan on the purchase option negotiated years earlier, Briar Capital used the current market value of the property thereby generating additional liquidity that was used for working capital and to limit out-of-pocket closing costs for the company.
“I met the owner 4 years ago and continually stayed in touch,” Jeff Appleton, executive vice president for national business development at Briar Capital, who sourced the transaction, said. “They were finally able to get their footing back after experiencing an industry downturn, supply chain issues and COVID. I am pleased that Briar has become the go-to lender in the commercial finance industry for unique real estate lending opportunities such as this and I doubt many other lenders would have had the ability to get their arms around this transaction as quickly as we did. Many thanks to Briar Capital’s stellar underwriter, closer and CFO, Leah Goldberg who spearheaded the closing and worked diligently to get this opportunity across the finish line by year-end in a little over 2 weeks.”
