Citizens Sells, Leases Back HQ

PROVIDENCE, RI-Citizens Financial Group has sold its 13-story 224,089-sf headquarters here to publicly held American Financial Realty Trust for $60.2 million. As part of the deal, Citizens leased back 93,000 sf (42%) of the building for 10 years on a net lease basis. The building is 100% leased, with 153,000 sf (69%) occupied by financial institutions.

Jenkintown, PA-based AFRT financed the acquisition under a short-term bridge facility at a rate of LIBOR plus 1.40% pending the placement of permanent financing on the property. It anticipates an average capitalization rate of approximately 7% based on the projected cash flows under the existing leases.

AFR is a REIT that acquires properties from, and leases properties to, regulated financial institutions. This latest transaction–the sixth AFR has executed with Citizens Financial–was part of AFR’s “Landlord of Choice” program.

AFR chief executive Nicholas Schorsch tells GlobeSt.com the program offerings include arrangements whereby AFR will purchase every vacant branch in a bank’s portfolio, execute multiple sale-leaseback transactions, and acquire larger bank portfolios that include offices, operations centers and bank branches. AFR’s portfolio now totals 1,000 buildings, 700 of them bank banches and the rest are office buildings and operations centers. It clientele includes Bank of America, US Bancorp, Wachovia, Citigroup, AIG and Charles Schwab, among others.