Griffin-American Healthcare REIT II in Irvine, an owner of healthcare-related real estate properties that has ties to Grubb & Ellis Co., appears to be one of the few winners emerging from the brokerage company’s short-lived stint as an Orange County-based company.
The nontraded real estate investment trust announced this month that it had reached a deal to be sold to New York-based REIT NorthStar Realty Finance Corp.
The cash-and-stock deal, rumored to be in the works for several weeks, values the healthcare company at $4 billion, including about $600 million in debt. The transaction carries a capitalization rate of about 6.4% and is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
Griffin-American Healthcare REIT II was founded in 2009. It currently owns more than 280 properties, an assortment of medical office buildings, senior housing facilities, hospitals and skilled nursing facilities in the U.S. and the U.K that total more than 11 million square feet.
The aggregate purchase price of the buildings is about $2.9 billion.
“When we launched Griffin-American Healthcare REIT II nearly five years ago, we set out to build a premium portfolio of diversified healthcare real estate in order to provide investors with an opportunity to realize a compelling return on their investment,” Griffin-American Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Hanson said in a statement. “With this transaction, we have executed on our strategy.”
The company was launched under the Grubb & Ellis Healthcare REIT II Inc. name a year after Grubb & Ellis moved its headquarters to Santa Ana from Chicago following its ill-fated combination with locally based NNN Realty Advisors Inc.
In 2011, amid financial issues and questions over the strategic direction of its parent company, the REIT disassociated itself from Grubb & Ellis, which went bankrupt in 2012 and merged its brokerage operations with Newmark Knight Frank. The combined company is now known as Newmark Grubb Knight Frank and is based in New York.
Griffin-American launched another nontraded healthcare REIT this year and is looking to raise more than $1.7 billion from investors.
Cypress Sale
Cypress Center, a 46,037-square-foot shopping center at the intersection of Knott and Katella avenues in Cypress, has traded hands.
An undisclosed buyer paid $17.5 million for the property, or about $380 per square foot. The deal included the assumption of a $9.5 million loan that matures in 2017, according to brokers with the Newport Beach office of CBRE Group Inc., whose national retail investment group team worked on the deal.
The center is anchored by a Target and a Dollar Tree store, although the 101,441-square foot Target was not part of the sale. It’s about 95% leased, with monthly rents about $2.80 per square foot, according to brokerage data.
The center was sold by an affiliate of Dallas-based pension fund adviser Sarofim Realty Advisors, which paid about $15.5 million for the property in 2007.
The buyer is described by CBRE officials as “a family office with institutional capital focused on real estate acquisitions.”
CBRE’s Kirk Brummer, Preston Fetrow, Todd Goodman, Gleb Lvovich and Phil Voorhees represented the seller in the deal.
Ambry Acquisition
Ambry Genetics Corp., an Aliso Viejo-based commercial clinical laboratory, has bought an office next to the company’s existing headquarters.
An affiliate of the company, which provides genetic services focused on clinical diagnostics and genomic services, last month bought 7 Argonaut, a 33,868-square-foot building a few blocks north of the San Joaquin Hills (73) toll road and just off Glenwood Drive.
Terms of the sale weren’t immediately disclosed. The building was offered for sale at a price of about $6.2 million, or about $183 per square foot. A unit of Costa Mesa’s Pacific Mercantile Bank had owned it, according to property records.
The bank took over the building after its prior occupant and owner, lending company Point Center Financial Inc., went bankrupt last year. Point Center was led by Dan Harkey, husband of state Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, R-San Juan Capistrano.
Ambry Genetics currently has its headquarters at 15 Argonaut, a 37,151-square-foot building it leases.
