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New York

Miller Samuel backed out of merger with Radar Logic

Although Miller Samuel decided to cancel the company’s planned merger with research firm Radar Logic sometime last week, the appraisal firm is open to collaborating with its former partner again, Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller said.
 
Miller announced Friday on his blog Matrix that Radar Logic’s planned purchase of Miller Samuel was dead and that the split was “amicable.” The deal was announced in September.

“I feel strongly that [Radar Logic’s] housing index is a reliable methodology,” Miller said. “It just wasn’t the right time for us [to merge].”
 
While Miller said he decided to pull out, Michael Feder, president and CEO of Radar Logic, said that the two firms made the decision mutually.
 
“Jonathan and I, after extensive examination, concluded that it would be better to defer the acquisition,” Feder said. “We have a lot going on at both firms,” Feder said.
 
The two firms were in talks to merge throughout last year, and expected to close the deal by the end of 2007, Miller said.

Miller said that he will stop preparing the monthly RPX housing market report that Radar Logic publishes. He said he expected that Radar Logic will continue to release the report.
 
The RPX report was not part of the agreement to merge the two companies, but something Miller did for Radar Logic “on good faith,” he said.

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“[Miller’s] going to continue working with us as an advisor, as a friend and as an interested party in the real estate industry,” Feder said told The Real Deal. “I think this will have absolutely no impact on the integral operations of either of the two firms.”

Miller said he was bullish on Miller Samuel’s future as an independent company, calling the present a “watershed moment for the appraisal industry,” following Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s crackdown on dishonest appraisers, and a “general lack of understanding by lenders as to what their collateral is worth.”

“I foresee firms like Miller Samuel that come from a neutral viewpoint being sought out by lenders that want to know what the properties they are lending against are actually worth,” Miller said.