From the category archives:

NRF

Northstar is Running out of Time; is Hamamoto Outside the Tent?

March 3, 2010

After a furious year of churning CMBS, repurchasing outstanding corporate debt and refinancing its bank loans, among other feats, Northstar actually ended the year with a little bit of cash. That’s the good news. The bad news is they’re going to need it. Northstar now has about $238 million in the bank, which includes the […]

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REITs Quietly Sell Stock Overnight at a Discount; Next Day Pop Fries Shorts

June 8, 2009

If Frank Quattrone could start over, he would be a REIT banker. REITs staged a huge rally this quarter, almost $15 billion in new equity has been raised through 45 public offerings this year, and even the Italians are descending upon New York to list new deals. With REIT stocks now being served up like […]

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Northstar Going Non-Traded REIT Route

March 13, 2009

Just two weeks ago, I speculated about REIT capital shortages and the ability of non-traded REIT equity to fill the gap in the post Averting Massive Sector Wide REIT Defaults: Non-Traded Equity May Be Part of the Answer. Pacific Office Properties Trust (PCE) had just disclosed their intention to raise $350 million through this market, […]

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Is Commercial Real Estate Loan Performance Really Improving?

December 17, 2008

Believe it or not, there was some good news for the beleaguered Mortgage REIT sector last month. Fitch said that commercial real estate CDO loan delinquencies actually fell in November. Translation: commercial real estate loans backing the CDOs that many Mortgage REITs issued by the bucketful were actually performing better, on average, than they had […]

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Northstar/Landcap Loan Acquisition: High Reward, Low Risk

September 8, 2008

“Jeff [Gault] is a very smart guy with two very smart partners,” [Goldman Sachs and Northstar Realty Finance] Matkins said. “They formed LandCap 18 months ago. They did two deals in 18 months. Now Jeff will get 10 calls a day.” Just a couple of weeks after the Northstar Realty Finance (NRF) reported strong earnings, […]

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REIT CDO Buybacks

August 22, 2008

The $1.2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) is draining money from investor’s portfolios faster than the mighty Limpopo River flushes monsoon rains into the Indian Ocean. Consequently, investing in a CDO is now about as popular as halitosis, and CDO assets have been marked down as fast as overwhelmed accountants can sharpen their […]

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Northstar JV Buys High Yield Distressed Residential Assets

August 20, 2008

LandCap Partners, a fully discretionary, 50/50 joint venture between Northstar (NRF) and Goldman Sach’s (GS) Whitehall Real Estate Funds, is buying $40 million of troubled land and construction loans from Wachovia Corp (WB), according to The Wall Street Journal. This $40 million purchase will be the fund’s second investment. Northstar committed $175 million to the […]

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Northstar Flexing Earnings Muscles; Window Closing on Others

August 7, 2008

I have already written extensively about Northstar here, here and here, among other places, so I will keep this somewhat short. The biggest news to come out of the call from a “market” perspective is that Northstar is now starting to deploy cash. Forget about having to raise equity; they have $295 million available to […]

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Stifel Takes a Stab at Northstar

August 3, 2008

FAS 159: More Red Flags Than a Military Base in China, or Just a Little Frost on the Windshield? Stifel Nicholas analyst David Fick downgraded Northstar from hold to sell on Friday. Maintaining coverage at a hold is hardly table-pounding, so downgrading to sell what ev’s, dude seems like a minor administrative point, especially in […]

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High Yield Northstar To Set Dividend

July 21, 2008

Here is the dividend history (below). The announcement should be out after the market closes tomorrow, 7/22 or perhaps 7/23. What will it be, .36/share, or maybe something else? The recapitalization of Wakefield should provide some downside protection, but there has been virtually no new investment activity at Northstar since Q1 ’07. Consequently, Northstar is […]

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