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Twain Financial Partners Delivers Ground Lease Capital to Self-Storage Development

March 2, 2021
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Twain Financial Partners closed on three milestone ground lease capital transactions with Mequity Companies and Stonebriar Commercial Finance.  The transactions are Twain’s first deals within the self-storage industry and are the result of a collaborative effort between Twain and Stonebriar. Twain contributed a total of $23.5 million and Stonebriar contributed a total of $15.5 million to the three Mequity projects located in Florida, Massachusetts, and New York.

Ground leases offer property owners the ability to finance development projects or reposition existing assets by entering into sale and leaseback agreements with repurchase options. Property owners receive a lump sum payment for a portion of the value of the ground and current or future improvements. Further, property owners retain ownership and operational rights while making ground lease payments to Twain.

All three projects consist of the ground-up construction of self-storage facilities. The projects are located in high growth locations of Port St. Lucie, FL; Framingham, MA; and Port Jefferson, NY.

“Ground lease capital is an excellent cost-effective option for Mequity as part of the capital stack in our self-storage development projects,” said Bill Marsh, CEO of Mequity. “Twain has been great to work with in providing this capital and has become a valued programmatic partner for Mequity.”

“Stonebriar is thrilled to partner with Twain and Mequity to bring these projects to life,” said Travis Bell, Managing Director of Originations at Stonebriar. “Our collaboration resulted in a successful and creative financing option for Mequity. We look forward to partnering with these companies again in the future.”

“Only a year after launching, we have found our ground lease capital program to be a great fit for self-storage developers,” said Jon Kelly, Business Development Officer at Twain. “Through our successful partnership with Mequity and Stonebriar we hope to spread the word and do many more projects in this asset class. Twain would like to thank Tim Finiki of Largo Capital for introducing us to the Mequity team and making these deals possible.”

Learn more about ground lease capital.