USAA strikes healthcare op partner agreement

The fund manager is teaming up with Brackett Flagship Properties for a joint venture initially buying nine properties in north and south Carolina.

USAA Real Estate Company (USAA), the $12 billion real estate investment management arm of the United Services Automobile Association, has struck up a joint venture with a local operating partner to acquire healthcare properties.

It has formed an agreement with Brackett Flagship Properties, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based company, to development, manage and lease up healthcare-sector properties, particularly medical office and other health-system outpatient facilities throughout the south eastern part of the US.

In the first place, the joint venture has acquired a portfolio of nine properties totaling 315,000 square feet in eight cities throughout North and South Carolina, and north east Tennessee. “This represents a programmatic deployment of capital with a strategic partner focused on the healthcare sector, and is one that (we) believe has significant growth potential, based in part on its extensive demographic analysis,” said USAA in a statement. The new venture will target investments in primary and secondary markets of the states of Tennessee, Southern Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, and will have the financial capacity to both buy assets and develop. Len O’Donnell, president and chief executive officer added the firm expected to replicate the programmatic JV in other regions throughout the US.

The operating partner USAA has chosen for its first such healthcare program was formed in 2010 through the merger of Flagship Capital Partners and Diane Brackett Company, and is led by managing partners Charles Campbell, Diane Rivers and Brannen Edge. Outside the venture with USAA, it owns and/or manages more than 1.2 million square feet of healthcare assets.

PS: see the April issue of PERE for a focus on operating partners