Square Mile, Ram buy $150m of NPLs

Square Mile Capital Management and Ram Realty have teamed up to make a $150 million distressed loan acquisition.

New York-based Square Mile and Palm Beach, Florida’s Ram Realty have bought 38 non-performing loans on behalf of affiliates of funds Ram Realty Partners II, and Square Mile Partners III, the pair said.

Though they did not disclose the identity of the seller, the firms said the par value of the loans was $150 million with the underlying assets being almost entirely retail property including 39 shopping centres in nine southern US states, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. 

In a statement, Ram and Square Mile said they had jointly considered several distressed investments since early 2009, but this acquisition was the first one that the partners “aggressively pursued”.

Casey Cummings, president of Ram, said: “We believe that these debt offerings tend to be very competitive, so we only focus in areas where we have a competitive advantage.”

Ram’s existing portfolio is made up 60 percent shopping centers, 30 percent apartments and 10 percent mixed-use assets.

The two firms have each contributed roughly 50 percent of the capital.

Cummings said: “In the last 18 months, distressed debt investing has represented an overwhelming majority of our new transactions. We continue to have active dialogue with the larger regional and national banks regarding assets in the Southeast. It has been widely reported that there are tens of billions of loans in special servicing, many of which will be sold,” he says.