Two kinds of strategies seem to attract the 🦁 share of institutional dollars nowadays: scale, and kink. Either be the firm that vacuums up most of the meaningful deals and players in your market – a meal worthy of one of the AUM Gobblers ™ . Or do something a bit weird, establish narrative dominance in that niche, and set yourself up to have the big boys come knocking. ⛓️ 👇

The new HUD “Express Lane” reduces refinancing timelines for skilled nursing and assisted living facilities from 120+ days to as few as 10–15.

But there are nuances you need to know before you get started. Bravo Capital’s latest tactical guide breaks down exactly who qualifies, what the application process looks like, and what you need to do to fully take advantage of this program.

Brookfield and Safehold, a Jay Sugarman-led REIT that focuses exclusively on ground leases, have formed a JV on an existing national portfolio of Safehold assets. Brookfield is buying a 49% stake in the portfolio at a $348M gross valuation, w/ Safehold retaining a repurchase option after Y7 (a common exit timeline for a fund). Safehold calls the management shots here, per the announcement. (Eastdil & BofA advised Safehold.)

Ground leases have been a fixture of the CRE game forever. They typically grab headlines only when there’s drama between the fee owner & tenant (see: Chrysler Building or the 625 Madison battle), or in public-private partnerships (here’s a CBA on a Hudson Yards ground lease). Sugarman * is widely credited w/ helping institutionalize the space: He was at Starwood in ‘93 when he founded iStar, taking it public in ‘98. It initially played in several lanes, from structured finance (bought Lazard’s portfolio) to loan servicing. In ‘17, iStar created the Safehold REIT to invest in ground leases, and that arm eventually became the main event.

But of course, this is a REIT, and so there’s no ❤‍🔥 to be found on Wall St. : Safehold’s stock is down 79% over the past 5Y, despite decent financials. The market cap is just $1.1B, compared to the company’s self-reported $9.5B unrealized capital appreciation. So if the narrative isn’t landing in the public markets – Insiders: See your section for an illustration of the firm’s pitch on ground-lease economics and its upside units👇 🔒 – one can turn to private capital that can sell the story to its investors in different ways. Brookfield – which has taken a series of baths on office bets in recent months (DTLA, DC area) – bills the Safehold deal as “further expanding our exposure to high-quality real estate backed by durable cash flows.”

(Listen also to: It’s Not Easy Being [SL] Green 🎙 )
* Sugarman is also a prolific collector of romance comics – never accuse the guy of being one-dimensional!

Those hooked on The Promote pod will know we’ve had some choice words for Forge Atlanta. It’s billed as a $3.8B project, but w/ the following characteristics:
1. Sponsor is a penny-stock co.
2. CEO is the sole full time-employee
3. Previously was audited by a Nigerian co. in the SEC’s crosshairs
4. Sold crypto tokens (of c!)
5. Defaulted on seller financing (twice)
6. Has $1,200 of cash on hand

So we were shocked – shocked! – to learn that one of its prospective investors is now crying foul, alleging that a fundraiser for the project failed to provide proof of share purchases and is running a Ponzi scheme. Webstar’s attorney tells Bisnow that the gent in Q, Eric McClendon, is an independent consultant to the Webstar entity that controls the project, and any actions taken against him are “private and outside of Webstar.” McClendon, for his part, blames the bad headlines for spurring the investor to file the complaints. “To take it to this level is crazy,” he says. “We’re right now about to turn the corner. This is a great project. There’s a lot of value in it. Everyone sees it.”

As we’ve said prior, the real scandal here isn’t Webstar (shooters shoot), or the various apparatchiks involved in the project. It’s the fact that something w/ THESE 👆 credentials won approval for $224M in bond financing from Fulton County’s economic development authority. At the time, the authority’s chair Kwanzaa Hall called it a “forward-looking, landmark investment in the future of our growing city and thriving region.” Bruh.

We recently had 2 of our go-to capstack whisperers from Northmarq write us a field dispatch of the shifting equity-credit dynamics for The Promote Insider, and we’ve now turned their insights into a handy video breakdown. Capstacks today are as weird as they’ve been in a long time, and we break down what sponsors (and their lenders and paper-pushers) should be thinking about. Check it out on YouTube. And let us know in the comments what we should break down next.

Among the most fantastical numbers we’ve ever seen in the divorce business, relative to the size of the operation: Luxury hotel REIT Braemar has agreed to pay a $480M breakup fee to Monty Bennett’s Ashford Inc. and become a self-managed REIT. Of course, this is a Mickey Mouse firm (market cap: $157M), so it will have to sell a bunch of assets to make good on that payment. Braemar shares are down close to 90% since it was spun off from Ashford in ‘13; Monty-controlled asset managers have received $1.9B in payments from Ashford & Braemar over the years. So think Jon Gray-type paydays on a company less than half the market cap of Newmark.

Braemar’s largest shareholder, Wafic Saïd’s Al Shams, described the breakup fee as “one of the most brazen acts of self-dealing we have ever witnessed in a public company,” adding that “we believe Mr. Bennett engineered this outcome himself.”

That is not governance,” Al Shams added. “That is theft dressed in a suit.” 🕴