Warren de Haan (left), Kyle Jeffers (top right), and Tony Fineman.
Warren de Haan, Kyle Jeffers and Tony Fineman
Co-founder, managing partner and CEO; chief investment officer; and head of originations at Acore Capital
Last year's rank: 12
Acore Capital has been well equipped to handle the pressure of a stormy CRE market over the past two years.
The private lender’s large origination team of 27 people coupled with a heavy dose of insurance capital has helped Acore distinguish itself from much of the competition with an ability to go after deals others can’t. Some 89 percent of Acore’s capital for CRE lending derives from insurance companies, which have not been impacted by the headwinds facing many banks.
Acore spent a good chunk of the year navigating interest rate challenges facing existing debt for borrowers with around half of its 260-loan balance sheet undergoing some form of modification, which CEO Warren de Haan said was aided by having a large shop synced between lending and asset management functions.
“We have 27 originators in five offices all across the country, and every one of them has been involved with the asset management team to get to the best answer of balancing our investors and our borrowers because sometimes the objectives of those two are different,” de Haan said. “We have the capacity not just from a capital structure perspective, but from a human capital perspective to accommodate these borrower modifications.”
From March 1, 2023, to March 1, 2024, Acore originated $1.6 billion to go along with $2.5 billion of major modifications on 27 existing loans. Its yearly volume when accounting for material modifications was $11 billion from 128 loans. When factoring in loans with minor modifications, Acore’s yearly origination total was $14.5 billion on 194 loans.
One of Acore’s signature deals from the past year involved upsizing an original $140 million loan it made in 2021 to $275 million for InSite Property Group to expand its development pipeline of self-storage properties nationally. The financing enables InSite to execute additional self-storage developments with a revolving structure based on interest rate conditions.
The InSite deal, too, reflects Acore’s recent focus on lending on self-storage portfolio transactions and its ability to compete with banks, who traditionally take the lion’s share of single asset deals in this sector.
“It’s a very innovative way for a nonbank lender to get exposure to self-storage because, if it’s a stabilized self-storage building or close to stabilization, the banks were eating that stuff up,” de Haan said.
