GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: Round Two Brings Fund Closer to $230M Cap

DALLAS-With the dust settled on quiet exits by a quartet of power players, the leaders of the startup are ready to talk about the future of Thackeray Partners Inc. The private equity group's in the process of stacking closings for a $230-million capped fund.

Market watchers have been waiting to hear what the quartet--Tony Dona, Mary Hager, Chris Cozby and Bill Vanderstraaten--has in store for the newly formed company. In the past month, Thackeray Partners closed the fund's first leg, $125 million. The $60-million second round will close in late July, Dona tells GlobeSt.com. And the final piece, sure to roll in before yearend, will push the buying power to a minimum of $210 million and a max of $230 million, according to Dona.

"That's probably three to six months quicker than we expected," Dona says. "It was smoother than we anticipated, but it was still hard work."

Dona says Thackeray Partners' investors represent a 50-50 mix of US family offices and university endowments. The game plan calls for equity placements of $1 million to $8 million for office, industrial, retail and multifamily acquisitions in the US. Contracts are out on industrial and retail properties in Atlanta, Denver and Dallas, he says.

Dona predicts the first acquisition will close in July, kicking off a spending schedule for "a two- to three-year window." When the capital's exhausted, he's anticipating 40 properties will be in hand, predicating the portfolio size on a $5-million to $30-million target market.

Dona says there's no hurry to spend the pool nor any desire on the partners' part to compete against their former employers: Crow Holdings, Trammell Crow Co. and CarrAmerica Realty Corp. "We're not terribly interested in being big and we're not terribly interested in spending the capital quickly," says Dona, Crow Holdings' former CEO. "We're going to be prudent and cautious." Hager, also with Crow Holdings, was managing director when she and Dona decided to start Thackeray Partners and recruited their decades-old friends, Vanderstraaten, CarrAmerica's managing director in Dallas, and Cozby, co-leader of TCC's capital markets group. Their combined experience totals more than 80 years in the industry.

Cozby says retail purchases will include secondary markets as well as primary, both shadow- and grocery-anchored venues. "We do not want to be specifically a Texas fund or a Southwest fund," he says. "We're going to be looking at both coasts and everything in between."

Vanderstraaten says office acquisitions will focus on US growth markets. The "wish list" is made up of California, both north and south, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas/Fort Worth, Phoenix, Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. "We are going to be diverse in our investment around the country and the product types," he says.

The quartet, shunning titles with the setup, intends "to stay relatively small when compared to other private equity groups," Vanderstraaten says. "It's very appealing to be moving into a self-directed, small boutique." The group's opened doors on a class A office in Preston Center's 5956 Sherry Lane.