As the LLC's managing equity owner, Colony Capital will provide for the management, servicing and ultimate disposition of the LLC's assets. The participating FDIC receiverships will hold the remaining 60% equity interest in the LLC. The portfolio was effectively acquired at approximately 44% of the unpaid principal balance of the loans, with financing that includes $233 million of notes provided by the FDIC. Deutsche Bank served as adviser to the FDIC on the sale of the 40% LLC interest to Colony.

All of the loans were from banks that have failed during the past 18 months. Some 75% of the portfolio collateral is located in Georgia, California, Nevada and Florida.

Colony Capital LLC is a private international investment firm founded in 1991 by Thomas J. Barrack Jr. that has a long history of specializing in distressed assets. Last year, it launched Colony Financial Inc., a publicly held REIT that focuses on acquiring, originating and managing commercial mortgage loans. Barrack is chairman and CEO of both Colony Capital LLC and Colony Financial.

In December, Colony Financial said in a public filing that it and other funds managed by Colony Capital acquired two portfolios of first mortgage commercial real estate loans with an aggregate principal balance of approximately $208 million from a US life insurance company and a US commercial bank. The aggregate purchase price for the portfolios was approximately $150 million, excluding transaction costs.

The portfolios contain 36 recourse and non-recourse loans, 35 of which were performing at the time of the public filing. The underlying properties securing the portfolios are located across 14 states and consist of retail, office and industrial properties and one hotel.

Colony Financial also recently invested approximately $20 million in two European investments alongside of other funds managed by Colony Capital, according to the December filing. One investment is the acquisition, at a discount, of a portfolio of non-performing loans collateralized by properties located in Germany, and the other investment is the acquisition, also at a discount, of a performing loan issued by a Spanish real estate company collateralized by Spanish properties directly through mortgages and French properties through real estate securities.