Exeter Buys 4.4M-SF Portfolio Out of Special Servicing

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA—Exeter Property Group, headquartered here, has closed on the $132-million acquisition of an eight-building, 4.4-million-square-foot industrial portfolio located in Memphis, the Nashville metro area and Columbus, OH. Formerly known as StratREAL Industrial Portfolio II, the buildings had been in special servicing since last June, when LNR Property LLC took control of them upon their transfer from London-based Strategic Realty Advisors Ltd.

"Unlike the initial phase of workouts and dispositions of distressed assets, it appears that even institutional-quality assets are now moving through the system,” says Andrew Phillips with Colliers International in Memphis. “Opportunities to acquire a critical mass of value-added, class A product continue to decline. We had significant interest from many of the industry's largest players, which contributed to our ability to move the portfolio in just 90 days from assignment to closing."

Colliers' Asset Resolutions Team, which handled the assignment on behalf of LNR, was led by Michael T. Fay in South Florida and Jon Barry in Atlanta. Along with Phillips, other members of the team included Steve Timmel in Cincinnati; Andy Cates in Memphis; and Bill Baumgardner, formerly of Colliers' Columbus office.

Four of the properties are in Memphis. They include the 625,000-square-foot 5200 Tradeport Dr., occupied by Trane; the 550,000-square-foot 6005 Freeport, which is partially occupied by Kuehne & Nagel; the 600,000-square-foot 3399 E. Raines Rd., where Philips Electronics North America is the sole tenant; and  the 337,655-square-foot 4550 Swinnea Dr. partially occupied by Ingram Micro.

Across the state in the Nashville suburb of La Vergne, the 770,000-square-foot building at 437 New Sanford Rd. is used as a distribution center by Cinram, which makes and packages DVDs and CDs. A trio of industrial properties totaling 1.7 million square feet in Columbus, OH rounded out the portfolio. The properties traded for between $21 and $30 per square foot, according to Real Capital Analytics data.

Exeter has been in acquisition mode since the start of 2014. RCA data indicate that the company has also bought more than two million square feet year-to-date in single-property industrial acquisitions in the Chicago suburbs of Glendale Heights and Batavia, IL; Phoenix; Fort Mill, SC; Salt Lake City; Tampa, FL; and Hyattsville, MD, among others.