C-III Capital Partners Acquires Resource America

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

Andrew Farkas

Dallas—Leading CRE investment manager C-III Capital Partners LLC has completed its acquisition of Resource America Inc., both companies announced late last week. Common stock in Resource America (REXI) ceased trading on the NASDAQ last Thursday, Sept. 8.

Under the transaction, Resource America stockholders will be entitled to receive $9.78 per share in cash, or a total of about $207 million.

“This is a transformative acquisition for C-III,” chairman & CEO Andrew Farkas said in a prepared statement. “With our expanded platform, we are now able to provide commercial real estate debt and equity solutions to both institutions and retail investors.”

Resource America is an asset management company specializing in real estate and credit investments. It had approximately $9 billion in assets under management as of June 30 and manages roughly 17,000 multifamily units in more than 20 states.

It has raised approximately $1.4 billion in the aggregate through the independent broker-dealer network, including $635 million in capital for Resource Real Estate Opportunity REIT and $556 million for the multifamily-focused Resource Real Estate Opportunity REIT II, which closed in February.

Both C-III and Resource America declined to comment on the transaction.

The combination of C-III and Resource America, according to the announcement, draws on the best of both organizations “to create a diverse suite of commercial real estate services with a broad platform of investment products.” With the acquisition of Resource America, C-III adds one publicly traded REIT (Resource Capital Corp.; NYSE: RSO), four non-traded REITs and two other registered investment companies to its portfolio.

C-III’s expanded platform now manages more than $13 billion in assets, is the special servicer for $79 billion of commercial mortgage loans for more than 130 CMBS trusts and manages more than 57,000 apartment units across the United States.

C-III is in turn a subsidiary of Island Capital Group LLC of New York, a privately held international real estate merchant bank that controls a group of real estate services companies engaged in commercial mortgage servicing, principal investment, fund management, and financial advisory and consulting services.