Aventura firm makes $45M addition to its portfolio of school properties

ESJ Capital Partners, LLC, bought four charter school campuses in Arizona, Ohio and Washington, D.C., with a total of 176,000 square feet and 3,000 students

Arnaud Sitbon (Credit: South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine)
Arnaud Sitbon (Credit: South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine)

Aventura-based ESJ Capital Partners, LLC, acquired four charter school properties for $45 million.

ESJ bought the four school properties totaling 176,000 square feet from publicly held EPR Properties, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol EPR.

The schools in Arizona, Ohio and Washington, D.C., serve more than 3,000 students, from kindergarten through eighth grade. The operator of the schools is Imagine Schools, a national network of charter schools.

“This acquisition is consistent with our long-term strategy in this arena,” Arnaud Sitbon, president and CEO of ESJ, said in a prepared statement.

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ESJ supports the facility needs of private and charter schools through closed-end investment funds and has accumulated the facilities of 28 such schools, valued at more than $650 million.

ESJ has invested more than $100 million in the facilities of Imagine-run schools.

“The Imagine campuses that we just acquired have been open over 13 years and are thriving financially and academically, with consistent high enrollment,” Matthew Fuller, chief investment officer of ESJ, said in a prepared statement. – Mike Seemuth