Business Specialties Investments
Pierce, Hunt Partner to Expand Campus-Based Projects
Nov 20, 2007
By: Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

The Pierce Co. of San Diego, and Hunt Realty Investments of Dallas, have announced that they will form a partnership called Pierce Education Properties L.P.

The partnership will take over all of Pierce's current business, Pierce president & CEO Fred Pierce told CPN today. The Pierce Co. focuses on two product areas: student housing, where its portfolio includes more than 3,500 beds, and university mixed-use projects.

Hunt Realty Investments is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hunt Consolidated and is the centralized real estate investment management entity for the family of Hunt companies.

Pierce explained that his company will continue to act as a sponsoring partner, adding that PEP will receive up to $25 million from Hunt in the first tranche of funding. That will be matched primarily with funding from institutional investors and secondarily with The Pierce Co.'s own funds.

He told CPN that he anticipates PEP acquiring about $500 million worth of student housing nationwide over the next three years. The Pierce Co. is already ranked among the top 10 buyers of student housing nationally.

Pierce noted that according to Real Capital Analytics' database, $7.3 billion of student housing has been sold in the past 3 1/2 years--more than half of that to the three top student housing REITs. He therefore expects "a substantial shift" over the next two years toward activity by private student housing operating companies like his.

And although The Pierce Co. historically has concentrated in the Midwest and Texas, Pierce said that PEP will be looking for acquisition and development opportunities nationally during the first half of next year.




 
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As CPN reported exclusively in our Daily News REport Morning Edition, (subscribe here), with a shoutout to Bette Davis, it's been a bumpy weekend. First off, is it just us, or does recapitalizing every bank in the world sound a bit like global socialism? No matter, after a Saturday of President Bush and G-7 platitudes, as reported by CPN, world leaders got busy with specific action plans. On the heels of Britain's and the United States' pay-for-equity bank-bailout plans, Germany and France announced Sunday respective pledges to take equity stakes in distressed banks and to guarantee bank lending for periods up to five years. Although the measures are concrete, each country in the EU, and elsewhere in Europe, will still act independently.
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