Among nontraded real estate investment trusts, American Realty Capital Properties reigns supreme, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The firm, based at 405 Park Avenue, raised $3.6 billion over the first six months of the year from its nine unlisted REITs, including New York Recovery REIT. Last year, the REITs raised $2.6 billion, again putting it ahead of the competition.
Some have questioned how effectively CEO Nicholas Schorsch can invest large amounts of money – and whether acquiring properties with lower credit-quality tenants is too risky, if another recession hits.
“I’m somewhat suspicious of these guys,” David Bax, a financial planner in Las Vegas, told the Journal. “When they are bringing in that much money over a short period, I wonder how careful they are investing it.”
Schorsch told the newspaper he has never had a single default. The firm’s biggest REITs own about 2,800 properties and have produced double-digit returns since 2011, the report said.
Earlier this month, SL Green agreed to sell off a 347,000-square-foot, fully leased office property at 333 West 34th Street for $220 million to a unit of American Realty Capital. The commercial property investor also bought 447 properties mostly used by fast food restaurants from GE Capital for $774 million, as previously reported. It closed its $2.2 billion deal to buy CapLease in May. [WSJ] – Mark Maurer