A nontraded real estate investment trust that buys shopping centers is doing its best to distance itself from the company that founded it, Costa Mesa-based Thompson National Properties.
TNP Strategic Retail Trust Inc., which owns 19 shopping centers totaling 1.9 million square feet of space, said earlier this month that it finalized a partnership with Glenborough LLC, a San Mateo-based real estate investment and management company.
An affiliate of Glenborough will now act as the REIT’s new adviser and property manager. Glenborough also has made a financial investment in TNP Strategic Retail Trust, which will be rebranded as Strategic Realty Trust Inc., though the name change isn’t yet official.
Strategic Realty, which officially moved its headquarters from Newport Beach to San Mateo this month, could look to list its shares on a national exchange at a future date, according to the company.
Glenborough replaces an affiliate of Thompson National Properties as the REIT’s adviser and property manager.
Thompson National Properties founded the retail-focused REIT in 2008; TNP Strategic Retail Trust raised more than $108 million from investors since it launched.
A three-person special committee of Strategic Realty’s board of directors said it “determined it was in the best interest of the company and its shareholders to find a new advisor.”
The decision follows several months of acrimonious dealings between the special committee and Thompson National Properties’ chief executive, Tony Thompson.
Each side blames the other for a litany of financial issues the REIT has faced this year, including the suspension of dividends to shareholders; an ill-fated $32 million acquisition of a Hawaii shopping center in 2012 that already has gone back to the lender; and other loan compliance issues.
Tony Thompson and Tim O’Brien—another executive at Thompson National Properties—were both recently removed as co-chief executives of TNP Strategic Retail Trust.
Tony Thompson remains on the REIT’s five-person board of directors, but following a disclosure late last month that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority was charging him with securities violations, the company said on Aug. 12 that it has “formally asked Mr. Thompson to resign from the board.”
Thompson, who briefly served as chairman of brokerage Grubb & Ellis Co. when it was based in Santa Ana, has denied FINRA’s claims that he and his company defrauded investors.
In a July 23 letter to the REIT’s shareholders, he also said he encourages “the Special Committee to take responsibility for its unilateral and ill-considered decision to take control of the management of the company and its actions instead of trying to lay the blame at [Thompson National Properties].”
Austin Again
Irvine-based Steadfast Cos. is the latest local real estate investment company taking an interest in property in Austin, Texas.
The company’s Steadfast Income REIT Inc., a nontraded REIT that’s raised more than $400 million from investors since its 2010 launch, said this month it bought a pair of apartment complexes in Texas for a combined $92 million.
The larger of the two acquisitions was Meritage at Steiner Ranch, a 502-unit apartment community in Austin’s masterplanned Steiner Ranch community.
Steadfast acquired the 93%-occupied property for $80 million, according to the company.
It also paid $12.1 million for The Belmont, a 260-unit property in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Grand Prairie that’s 98% occupied.
Meritage is the third Austin apartment property for Steadfast, whose REIT now owns more than 10,000 apartments across the country.
Steadfast joins Newport Beach-based Buchanan Street Partners as a recent apartment investor in Austin. Other local companies, including MIG Real Estate LLC in Newport Beach and affiliates of Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Inc., have bought offices in and around the city this year.
Steadfast officials said Austin is consistently rated near the top of various lists of the best places to live, work or open a business, and has a diverse economy that’s anchored by government agencies, healthcare, technology and other sectors.
Tenant Rep Hires
CBRE Group Inc. has added a new office tenant representation team to its Newport Beach location.
The seven-person team includes executive vice presidents Rick Sherburne, Alex Hayden and Travis Boyd, Vice President Robert Taylor, and three associates.
They join CBRE from the Irvine office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc., where they said they averaged more than 100 transactions per year for large tenants, primarily in Southern California.
