Foreign Investors Circling Dallas, Atlanta

Principal Mark DeMattia, also acquisitions director, tells GlobeSt.com that the Dallas-based Keystone Strategies is looking to pick up another $50 million to $75 million of asset values in the next 12 months. Since Keystone Strategies' launch in 1998, it has completed more than $85 million in transactions.

"Like any Dallas real estate guy, I'm very bullish on this market," DeMattia says. "Long term, it's a wonderful market." Atlanta too has many of the same qualities that Keystone finds so favorable in Dallas. He says the foreign investors, primarily German, have a strong identity with the two towns and usually favor properties in areas they know. In fact, Keystone Strategies is evaluating a new build-to-suit office opportunity in Atlanta for its investors, DeMattia says.

The investors have an upper hand, says DeMattia, in that their money is liquid and ready to spend in the States. Part of the proceeds from last summer's sale of the 900,000-sf Blockbuster Worldwide Distribution Center in McKinney, TX is being channeled into the acquisition fund. "They are looking to re-deploy some of that capital," he says. "We have an immediate appetite for smaller projects, about $4 million, but others (investors) want $25-million projects."

Keystone Strategies' portfolio consists of office, retail and industrial products. It had been involved in a 127-acre residential project in Sedona, AZ, but just recently has "rolled out" of that project. "We're fortunate enough to be able to do a few different things," says DeMattia.

DeMattia and Marilyn Y. Acheson recently have been named principals for Keystone Strategies in a corporate restructuring. Acheson, a Keystone founder, also functions as director of asset management. Founder and principal Rainer Wenz of Geneva and Frankfurt is now functioning as an adviser to Keystone Strategies USA. "There is no change in what we're doing or how we're doing it," DeMattia says of the company realignment.