Irvine’s Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. last month reported a loss of $2 billion for 2007, but the mood at the real estate investment trust is starting to look a little brighter.
Chief Executive Joseph Tomkinson struck an optimistic tone during a late May conference call with analysts. The reason: Impac’s still alive, and is poised to grow, according to Tomkinson.
“I really believe that (Impac is) through the worst of it,” he said. “We have our head above the water a little bit and we are coming out of the surf flying. (Executives at the company are) going to go home and probably get drunk tonight and we will be back to work tomorrow.”
The company’s not saying it will be profitable for the remainder of 2008, but it should be cash-flow positive. For the 12-month period ending in March 2009, the company’s projecting cash flows of about $85 million. That’s up from the $40 million to $50 million the company was expecting a few months ago.
About $20 million of that cash is from Impac’s involvement in Irvine-based home auctioner Real Estate Disposition Corp., which uses Impac as its primary source of foreclosed homes.
The company’s current cash position and market value of about $80 million are comparable to when Impac went public more than 12 years ago, according to Tomkinson.
Impac’s making plans for some growth in the near term, including buying a billion-dollar loan servicing system. The deal “will give us more control over our own destiny,” Tomkinson said.
The company’s not ready to be too aggressive with any acquisitions, he said.
“A lot of people are running around raising money, saying they are going to go out and buy distressed assets we also felt that it was too early to enter that market, especially if you didn’t have the ability to control the servicing,” Tomkinson said.
HID Doubling Space
Irvine security card maker HID Global Corp. is moving its headquarters in the Irvine Spectrum, doubling its local size.
The company, part of Sweden’s Assa Abloy AB, signed two leases at The Irvine Company buildings, totaling about 110,000 square feet.
The leases are for about 47,000 square feet of office space at 15370 Barranca Parkway, as well as another 63,000 square feet of manufacturing space at 53 Discovery.
HID Global, which makes smart cards for tracking computers, automobiles and people, counts about 200 employees in Irvine, and more than 2,000 workers globally.
Terms of the leases weren’t disclosed. Chip Wright and Ross Bourne from the Newport Beach office of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. represented the tenant.
HID Global will be moving near the end of the third quarter. The company had been located at 9292 Jeronimo Road, where it was leasing 51,485 square feet from the Irvine Co.
Space at that location is being marketed at a monthly asking rate of $1.20 per square foot.
MyPrint Expands
Irvine-based MyPrint Corp. is expanding locally again.
The printer just signed a 31,956-square-foot lease at 2102 Alton Parkway. A unit of Chicago’s Walton Street Capital LLC owns the property.
Nick Spatafore of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s Newport Beach office represented MyPrint. Mike Hartel of Voit Commercial Brokerage LP represented the landlord in the lease, which began in May.
MyPrint, which did about $40 million in sales in the past year, has signed at least three other local leases since 2007. It struck deals last year for its fulfillment and stationary operations, as well as its growing technology division. It has also been looking to grow its production and fulfillment centers across the U.S.
KBS Buy
Newport Beach’s KBS Real Estate Investment Trust has a growing presence in Georgia.
Last month the real estate investor paid $17.8 million, or $86.50 per square foot, for a 205,645-square-foot industrial property in Suwanee, Ga., about 34 miles northeast of Atlanta. The building’s fully leased to Firearms Training Systems Inc., a weapons company.
The Suwanee deal is the 10th Georgia property acquired by KBS and its affiliates, which owns a total of about 1.8 million square feet in the state.
KBS REIT has raised about $1.4 billion for its investments since early 2006 and has bought about 55 properties, totaling 18.6 million square feet.
