Margolin Leading New Cencor Division

Fred Margolin, co-founder and former chairman of Dallas-based US Restaurant Properties, will lead the play to place mostly Dallas-Fort Worth-controlled capital into long-term investments, primarily retail properties, in Texas metros. Margolin, via Hanover Equity Ventures, will be scouring the state for 25,000-sf to 85,000-sf, income-producing properties in the $3-million to $10-million price range. The criteria also dictates good locations with clear "stability over long periods of time," he says, explaining the going-in plan calls for a 10- to 15-year hold.

The Dallas duo of Cencor and the Weitzman Group are using the new division to acquire, lease, manage and own for the long term properties that are smaller in scope than those under a JV umbrella with Horsham, PA-based GE Capital, Margolin explains. Cencor will control the ownership on behalf of the syndicate and manage the acquired properties while Weitzman's team will broker the transactions and lease the portfolio.

Margolin stresses the syndication will begin from the ground up and not include existing Cencor assets. "We will look at what's owned, but that's not the motivation. The plan is to buy new," he tells GlobeSt.com.

Margolin will spin his connections in the business world to build a master list of investors, zeroing in on private individuals with partnerships of 35 or less. The buying pool is sure to be deep-pocketed, but Margolin says "we don't feel that money is the limit. We feel the limit is finding properties."

Margolin says he's placed a couple letters of intent for North Texas properties, but has spent the last 10 days as the newest member of the Cencor team in getting the division ready to take to market. Hanover Equity Ventures will hit the streets with an acquisition goal of five to 10 properties per year. It's highly unlikely, he says, that the first deed for the portfolio will be secured this year.

Margolin "semi-retired" in 2001 about seven years after he founded US Restaurant Properties, a New York Stock Exchange-listed REIT that specializes in triple net restaurant properties. From 1999 until his retirement, he was CEO and president of the REIT, which grew from $60 million to $800 million in assets under his watch. After he left US Restaurant Properties, he co-founded a company that now is the largest franchisee of CiCi's Pizza, with a four-state territory. Intending no pun, Margolin says the return to the corporate world is because "I started getting hungry again to get back and get active.