Och-Ziff, Kolter in $1B Southeast Residential JV

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

-- New York-based Och-Ziff Capital Management Group and Kolter Group of West Palm Beach, Fla., have announced the formation of a $1 billion joint venture that will target residential properties in the Southeast that are at any stage of development, from undeveloped, unentitled land to finished projects.

Among Kolter's affiliates are Kolter Homes, which has since 1993 completed nearly $3 billion in high-rise, low-rise and master-planned communities, and Kolter Commercial, which focuses on office, multi-family and hotel properties.

Kolter Commercial’s portfolio currently includes more than 4 million square feet of office space in Toronto, nearly 2 million square feet of office space in Dallas, more than 1,800 multi-family units in Florida and more than 350 hotel keys in Florida.

Given the residential market's recent foreclosure woes--especially in the Southeast--demand for rental properties in those areas has shot up. Second quarter figures from RealtyTrac show that nationally, residential foreclosure filings were up by 14 percent from the previous quarter. The report also noted that Florida is one of six states in which foreclosure activity is “rampant.” In addition, Florida has the nation’s third-highest rate of residential foreclosures (after Nevada and California), according to RealtyTrac, and it’s the state with the second-highest number of properties under foreclosure filings: 45,884.

With offices in New York, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangalore and Beijing, Och-Ziff Capital Management is a leading global institutional alternative asset management firm. The company had approximately $30 billion of assets under management for over 700 fund investors as of late 2007.

Homepage Story Here