Centex Weds German Capital for Sale-Leaseback

DALLAS-Centex Commercial Development and German investors, buying through Dallas-based Keystone Strategies USA LP, have struck a sale-leaseback for a new building on five acres in the Vista Ridge Corridor near Lewisville. But, GlobeSt.com is told, that’s just the beginning of the relationship.

Mark A. DeMattia, Keystone’s acquisitions director, confides that the investors have options on future Centex buildings in the immediate area, delivering the Dallas-based builder with an up-front exit strategy for office product that might rise on its Texas 121 land mass. Until then, the buyer gets a 12-year tenant in Centex Home Equity Co. and a 40,250-sf building with enough land to expand, a strong consideration at this point.

When it comes to winning German capital, the best prospects are low-maintenance, long-term, net-leased deals. And that’s just what the Centex deal delivered, says DeMattia. He courted Centex, driving a “principal to principal” transaction without the use of brokers. In other words, the asset never had a chance to come to market. The selling price was more than $5 million and less than $10 million, and that’s all he is giving out about the price tag for the asset fronting Texas 121.

The location was key to the courtship. “In the long term, this is a great place to be,” DeMattia says. “By the time the lease rolls, it will be a very different area.”

The investors took out a 15-year loan, amortized over 25 years, at slightly less than 6% interest to close the sale. Tim Jordan of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP in Dallas arranged the financing through Jefferson Pilot Life Insurance Co. of Greensboro, NC.

But make no mistake, DeMattia says, the loan doesn’t mean the investors don’t have money to spend. He says the group, a well-heeled German family, is ready, willing and able to buy. It’s the same family who collected $40 million last year by selling the 900,000-sf Blockbuster distribution center in Dallas after a two-year hold.