Crow Readies Plan to Expand Texas Icon's Footprint

"With this acquisition, we've now placed roughly half of the $600 million," Dan Feeney, managing director for Crow Holdings, tells GlobeSt.com about a one-year-old fund. The buyer got a 90%-leased portfolio with 70 buildings, 186 acres and 30 ground leases in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio and the management team that made IDC into a Texas powerhouse.

Feeney says "deals are working as we speak" to bulk up IPC's holdings. He estimates Crow Holdings Realty Partners III, a diversified private equity fund, will spend $150 million to $200 million in the coming three years on acquisitions. The first closing could come in first quarter 2005, Feeney confides.

With the 17-employee IPC now under Crow's control, its longtime chairman and CEO Heinz Simon is retiring and nine-year company president, George A. Shafer, will be wearing only a vice chairman's hat. Lee Halford Jr., a 29-year IPC employee, will replace Shafer as president. The IPC name also stays in place.

"Lee's mission is really to execute the business plan we've got for the portfolio, continue to lease and manage the portfolio and explore development opportunities as they arise and help with any acquisitions," Feeney says. Right now, the fund's portfolio is three-fourths retail, industrial and multifamily and the balance consists of hotels, land and office products.

Crow and IPC began talks about a year ago for the one million sf in Dallas, 2.5 million sf in 40 buildings in Austin and 270,000 sf on the edge of the San Antonio International Airport. The portfolio's average age 14.5 years.

Feeney, unsure how many others were solicited, says "they were interested in a sale. They felt this was the best way to get value for shareholders." Crow, though, was the logical buyer since it picked up IPC-owned land under its Dallas Market Center, Wyndham Anatole and Dallas Design District--and the two icons have shared interests on several developments in the past 50 years of deal-making.