CRIC2 Funds is an investor for its own account in single-tenant net leased properties. The company has come to the forefront of net leasing not only due to its capital base, but also because of its people. They have well over a century of combined experience in real estate finance dating back to 1958. As a result, CRIC2 Funds has developed what might be called an institutional memory, having experienced the tax, accounting and financing changes that have occurred since 1958. But like any other successful organization, it is not the institution that counts. It is the people within the institution and the quality of their service.
CRIC2 Funds’ history dates back to the autumn of 1958 when Robert L. Nessen, principal of CRIC2 Funds, was actively engaged in closing the first major sale-leaseback transaction done, involving 106 separate gasoline service stations net leased to DX Sunray Oil Company. At the time, Mr. Nessen practiced with the law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood in New York City. Over the next four decades, Mr. Nessen represented most of the institutional lenders and the major investment banking firms in the net lease industry. In 1970 he formed a private investment-banking firm that specialized in corporate real estate finance, with a particular emphasis on net lease transactions. This endeavor led to the creation of Corporate Realty Capital in the late-1980s, a venture with Corporate Property Investors, the largest institutionally owned real estate investment trust in the United States at the time.
Corporate Realty Capital, a real estate investment-banking firm, represented corporations in the financing of their real estate. From 1989 through 1997, Corporate Realty Capital arranged approximately $600 million of net lease and other corporate real estate financings. During this time, Ethan Nessen, Leo Schwartz and Marjorie Palace joined the company and became part of the company’s reorganization as Corporate Realty Investment Company (CRIC) in 1997.
CRIC, a venture between the principals of Corporate Realty Capital and Nassau Capital, an investment arm of the Princeton University endowment fund, became a principal in net lease transactions. From 1997-2001, it closed more than $1 billion of net lease transactions.
As the needs and demands of the marketplace expanded and changed, CRIC, LLC partnered with Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI), an institutional investor that would take the company to the next level by providing increased access to capital and flexibilities that an endowment fund could not provide. Together CRIC, LLC and PREI formed CRIC Capital, LLC in 2001. Through the joint venture, CRIC managed three different funds for PREI, overseeing the successful acquisition and profitable disposition of hundreds of real estate assets throughout the United States. By the time that the third PREI fund was fully invested in 2008, CRIC had created a tangible and measurable track record of success, granting it wide access to a depth of private equity capital.
Today, CRIC2 Funds, LLC features the same knowledgeable principals, with a depth of private equity capital. CRIC2 Funds is an investor for its own account in single-tenant net leased properties. The company acquires properties from and leases them to creditworthy corporations who want to take advantage of monetizing their real estate and utilizing the creative structures CRIC2 Funds offers. The company also acquires properties from developers and other third party sellers with existing net leases in place. CRIC2 Funds? pursues transactions that are $10 million and greater and customizes 10-year, 15-year, 20-year and longer lease terms. Its flexible capital also allows the firm to acquire smaller single assets with existing solid net leases in place. CRIC2 Funds continues to meet and surpass the needs and business objectives its clients with quick and efficient transactions closings.
The principals of CRIC2 Funds are proud of their performance over the years, but not so proud as to ever forget that success is based upon performance, and performance depends upon service. CRIC2 Funds stands or falls on the quality of its service just as any retailer or manufacturer. Its major job is to understand the needs of the companies that come to it for capital and to structure transactions that can address these needs.