BlackBirch Capital has been exclusively retained by Miramar Capital to raise approximately $250 million of programmatic capital to invest in last-mile, mission critical industrial real estate assets leased to predominantly investment grade tenants across the U.S. The team is led by Lew Friedland, who recently ran Colony Capital’s industrial platform before it was sold to Blackstone in 2019 for $6 billion.

News Article – PERE
Former Colony execs launch industrial platform with ex colleagues
The new business has already closed on its first deal and is embarking on a capital raise focused on last-mile logistics facilities in the US.
By Evelyn Lee – 1/6/2021

Former Colony Capital executive and industrial real estate veteran Lew Friedland and fellow Colony alumnus Peter Eichler III have joined their ex-colleagues at Santa Monica, California-based real estate investment firm Miramar Capital, PERE has learned

The two executives are launching the firm’s industrial real estate platform Miramar industrial, with fellow managing partners Paul Furhman and Jae Yi.  Furhman and Yi had previously worked with Friedland and Eichler at Colony before cofounding Miramar Capital in 2017 with another former Colony colleague development partner Perry Hariri. Furman had been Executive Director and head of US acquisitions for opportunistic debt and equity investments at Colony for more than nine years, while he was a Managing Director responsible for sourcing, evaluating, executing, and managing opportunistic debt and equity investments across all property types.

Friedland founded and lead Dallas-based private equity firm Cobalt Capital Partners which amassed an industrial portfolio of 29.5 million square feet across the US before being sold to Colony for 1.6 billion in 2014. He then ran Colony Industrial and doubled the size of the portfolio to approximately 60 million square feet prior to its subsequent sale to Blackstone for 5.9 billion in December 2019.Meanwhile Eichler was managing director of investment management at Colony where he sourced deals primarily in North America.  Both Friedland and Eichler joined Miramar in November but their hires were not previously reported.

Miramar Industrial’s focus on acquiring last-mile logistics facilities occupied by credit tenants and long leases in high-growth infill and suburban markets across the US. The platform of target gross returns of 8 – 12% and net yield of 6 – 8% on its investments. Transactions will range in size from 10 million to 100 million with equity commitment from 5 million to 40 million assuming 55 – 65% leverage.

“Our focus on infill long-term credit-leased logistics properties is designed to generate attractive, stable and growing cash yields,” Friedland explained.  “Given the increasing demand for a quick delivery into local markets and the limited new supply of buildings that are well-suited for this purpose, we believe the strategy will generate attractive returns for our partners”.

The platform currently has an active pipeline of deals totaling approximately 2 billion and closed last month on its first investment a 64 million, 150,000 square foot last-mile industrial asset located in Connecticut and lease to Amazon for 15 years. It also has a second deal under exclusivity involving a 60 million, 300,000 square foot last-mile property.

Miramar is in advanced discussions to form a multi-hundred-million-dollar programmatic joint venture to pursue its new industrial strategy with a Korean investor.  Additionally, the firm has hired Black Birch Capital as placement agent to raise a targeted 250 million of equity in a fund or separate account structure. Through the vehicle Miramar will stick to acquire as much as 500 million in assets this year. In addition to industrial real estate Miramar also focuses on investing in the office, life science, multifamily sectors throughout the US. The firm has completed a total of 19 acquisitions and four exits to date and has approximately 1 billion of assets under management.