Berkadia Acquires Hendricks & Partners

 By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Hugh Frater, Berkadia CEO

Berkadia Commercial Mortgage L.L.C., of Horsham, Pa., a leading commercial real estate lender and servicer, has acquired Hendricks & Partners, of Phoenix, one of the nation’s largest privately held multi-family investment sales entities. The acquisition closed on Dec. 31, but was announced just yesterday.

Effective immediately, Hendricks & Partners will operate as Hendricks-Berkadia: Apartment Real Estate Advisors, alongside Berkadia’s loan servicing, mortgage origination and proprietary lending operations. Chairman and CEO Don Hendricks will join Berkadia’s executive committee as the CEO of Hendricks-Berkadia and executive vice president of Berkadia.

Founded in 1995, Hendricks & Partners has more than 180 apartment professionals in 37 offices nationwide. Its headquarters is remaining in Phoenix.

“Our industry continues to evolve toward providing as many services as possible to our customers,” said Berkadia CEO Hugh Frater. “In this new partnership we see tremendous opportunities to not only expand our existing client relationships with the offer of additional services, but also to build new relationships in the commercial real estate industry.”

“We are thrilled to be joining the team at Berkadia and bring aboard our broad array of investment sales and research capabilities to their borrower and investor client bases,” said Don Hendricks. “Combining Hendricks & Partners and Berkadia, the best sponsored company in the mortgage banking industry, enables us to build a first-class commercial real estate platform offering a wide array of capital solutions to multifamily owners and investors nationwide.”

Hendricks-Berkadia’s already-updated website says that the company’s clients can rely on “Direct access to a broad selection of commercial real estate financial services,” a nationwide network of 1,000 employees in 68 offices, experts with an average of 25 years of industry experience and the services of “A leading approved lender for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD/FHA.”

A joint venture between Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Leucadia National Corp., Berkadia manages a portfolio of more than $200 billion as of year-end 2012.