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Moelis & Co. is set to bring home a large financial advisory fee after helping Campus Crest Communities Inc. navigate the long and winding route to the REIT's sale agreement.
In the end, Campus Crest reached a $1.85 billion deal with Harrison Street Real Estate Capital LLC, and the details of the transaction's long back story are chronicled in a proxy statement that Campus Crest filed Nov. 16 with the SEC. For much of 2014 and 2015, Campus Crest faced a series of challenges, including a bid from an activist investor, the difficult sale of its star-crossed Montreal properties, a long-delayed first-quarter 2015 Form 10-Q filing and, all the while, a declining stock price.
To help with the process, Campus Crest hired Moelis as a financial adviser. Upon completion of the deal, Moelis will have received roughly $15.8 million in total fees, according to the filing.
The firm's payout -- one of several large sell-side advisory fees to arise from the recent months' REIT privatization wave -- is the ninth-largest disclosed sell-side advisory fee on a real estate M&A deals announced since 2011, according to SNL data through Dec. 2.
Moelis' payday falls far short of the largest disclosed sell-side financial advisory fee on a recent REIT privatization. So far, that distinction belongs to Morgan Stanley, which will earn a fee of $37 million for advising BioMed Realty Trust Inc. in its $7.86 billion sale to Blackstone Group LP.
But the Moelis fee on the Campus Crest deal stands out when viewed as a percentage of transaction value. The fee is 0.86% of the deal value, which ties it for the highest percentage among the 17 largest disclosed sell-side advisory fees on real estate M&A deals announced since 2011.
Part of the reason the fee reached that size, Campus Crest President and Chief Investment Officer Aaron Halfacre told SNL, is that Moelis had a...