Deals

Rockpoint invests $300m in multifamily REIT

The deal is the firm’s first capital deployment from its latest core-plus fund.

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In its first corporate deal in a decade, Rockpoint Group has invested $300 million in Roseland Residential Trust, the real estate investment trust said last week.

The investment will be committed over two years and represents a 17 percent stake in the REIT, with $150 million funded at closing, according to Roseland’s statement. Boston-based Rockpoint closed on its last corporate transaction about 10 years ago, when it acquired a stake in a West Coast multifamily REIT.

Roseland is the multifamily subsidiary of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, the Jersey City, New Jersey-based, northeastern US-focused REIT. Roseland, which was formed in December 2015, owned 5,600 multifamily units and had 3,000 in construction as of December 31, according to its fourth-quarter investment report. The REIT focuses on Class A multifamily properties in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, DC and the New Jersey waterfront.

“I have worked with Rockpoint before when I was at Vornado and they are a class act in everything they do and a superb fiduciary for their fund,” Michael DeMarco, Mack-Cali’s president, said in a statement last week. “We look forward to having great success in the upcoming years with them as our partner.”

PERE understands that the deal was Rockpoint’s first capital deployment from its latest fund, Rockpoint Growth and Income Fund II. Rockpoint launched the core-plus fund in June 2015 with a target size of $1.5 billion to $2 billion. Investors in the fund include the Indiana Public Retirement System, which earmarked $50 million, according to PERE data. Rockpoint raised $800 million in the first close for the fund in July, PERE previously reported.

Roseland’s latest publicly disclosed deal was the February purchase of Monaco, a 523-unit Jersey City apartment building, for $315 million, according to data provider Real Capital Analytics. The REIT is funding that acquisition and the remainder of its in-construction portfolio primarily with Rockpoint’s capital, according to the REIT.