CHARLESTON, SC - Mountain Real Estate Capital (MREC) announces the acquisition of a loan portfolio from First Federal Savings and Loan Association (“First Federal”) in Charleston, S.C. An affiliate of Sandler O'Neill acted as exclusive financial advisor to First Federal in the asset sale which closed October 27, 2011. The portfolio is made up of 148 performing and non-performing loans totaling $84 million in loan balance. The loans are secured primarily by residential development properties in the Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head and Kiawah Island areas of South Carolina.
“First Federal is the 28th bank we have acquired assets from since 2010, and we hope to acquire several more portfolios before the year ends,” observes Peter Fioretti, MREC’s CEO. Since 2010, MREC has purchased assets in 10 states and has committed $270 million to acquire bank notes and REO, encompassing over 12,000 lots/homes and 9,000 acres with projected sales exceeding $1.2 billion. “Our in-house underwriting and asset management teams are composed mostly of former GMAC REO professionals whose group we acquired in 2009. This allows us to quickly assess these A&D portfolios and gives us an advantage over less experienced opportunity funds.”
Mountain Real Estate Capital is the equity investment arm of the Mountain Real Estate Group, founded in 1993 by its CEO, Peter Fioretti. Other affiliates include its lending group, Mountain Funding, and its management group, Mountain Asset Management. MREC is focused on three types of investments:
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Acquisition of bank REO and NPL portfolios
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Joint ventures with national and regional homebuilders to develop and sell residential lots and houses
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Acquisition of opportunistic assets for its own account or in partnership with developers
MREC is headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., where its bank portfolio underwriting team is headed by Keith Alexander. Its homebuilder joint venture and asset management groups are based in Minneapolis, and its national origination team has additional offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Richmond, and Newport Beach.
“Being headquartered in nearby Charlotte will facilitate our effort to work closely with our borrowers. This will also present a great opportunity for us to team up with the developer and builder relationships we have cultivated in the Carolina markets to jointly develop assets we come to own,” states MREC’s chief investment officer, Arthur Nevid. “We have successfully purchased assets from banks throughout North Carolina and Georgia, so this new portfolio located throughout South Carolina will neatly fit into our asset management footprint.”