Thursday, September 28, 2006

It's Not 1999 Anymore
I completed an overview of a TIC offering for a client. The deal was raising around $10 million and was part of an established offering - each TIC deal is a separate part of the larger offering. The TIC deal had a non-accountable Organization and Offering fee of 4%. This means that the sponsor receives a fixed $400,000 for the legal and printing costs of the TIC deal no matter what the acutal cost. As the deal is part of a larger offering many legal costs have already been paid. The supplement discribing the deal was less than fifteen pages long. A stand-along TIC deal should pay approximately $150,000 for all its legal and printing costs, so this TIC deal's actual cost has to be much lower. This fee is egregious. It was not my only issue with this deal, but I don't want to waste computer ink on it.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Wells Timber REIT
I just received Wells Real Estate's newest offering in the mail- Wells Timber REIT. This may be interesting. (There has to be a joke somewhere - what will happen first, a tree dying of old age or a Wells deal going full cycle? I am betting on the tree.) The offering is effective, but it has no timber executive to run the company. That is an important omission. The cover letter states that Wells understands if broker/dealers wait until a timber executive is hired. I'd wait until Wells hires the executive, the offering raises $100 million or more, and buys and manages some timber land.
Wells Timber REIT
I just received Wells Real Estate's newest offering in the mail- Wells Timber REIT. This may be interesting. (There has to be a joke somewhere - what will happen first, a tree dying of old age or a Wells deal going full cycle? I am betting on the tree.) The offering is effective, but it has no timber executive to run the company. That is an important omission. The cover letter states that Wells understands if broker/dealers wait until a timber executive is hired. I'd wait until Wells hires the executive, the offering raises $100 million or more, and buys and manages some timber land.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Coffee Wars
I was in Hartford, CT, two weeks ago and saw the Dunkin' Donuts / Starbucks battle firsthand. The two were about 200 yards apart duking it out at 7:00 in the morning. The Dunkin' Donuts was packed, the drive-thorugh line must have been ten to fifteen cars deep. The Starbucks was crowded but nowhere near the level of Dunkin' Donuts. I went to the Starbucks out of habit but am curious to try Dunkin' Donuts' coffee.