CNL set to spin off commercial real estate unit

CNL division manages 21 million square feet.
CNL division manages 21 million square feet.

Orlando-based CNL Financial Group, a private investment management firm, will spin off its commercial real estate division as a separate company owned by its current executives. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CNL’s commercial real estate division, created in 2007, manages 21 million square feet of commercial properties in the Southeast, including office buildings, retail stores, industrial buildings and multifamily residences.

CNL is  well known in Orlando as the developer and owner of two office towers on either side of city hall in downtown Orlando.

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CNL will remain based in Orlando, as will the company’s 300 employees, and the new spin-off company, as yet unnamed, will remain in Orlando, too.

“No executives will be relocated. We don’t anticipate any job reductions. In fact, they will grow right here in Orlando,” Tom Sittema,  CNL’s chief executive officer, told the Orlando Sentinel.

The planned buyout of the commercial real estate division is led by its CEO Paul Ellis, Pryse Elam, the division’s head of development and investment; Ken Loerber, the unit’s president of real estate services; and an outside investor, New York-based HQ Capital Real Estate. [Orlando Sentinel] — Mike Seemuth