HJ Sims (Sims), a privately held investment bank and wealth management firm founded in 1935, is pleased to announce the successful completion of a $190 million financing in August 2017 for Ingleside at Rock Creek, located in Washington, D.C.Proceeds will be used for an expansion and renovation of its campus.
IRC, which is part of Ingleside, has served the northwest Washington, D.C. community for 100+ years. To address its growing waitlist and its healthcare offering on its campus, IRC embarked on a 105-unit independent living expansion as well as a new health services building, including the addition of memory care. However, tight site constraints and the negative operational impact of taking units offline during a 30-month construction period resulted in a challenging repositioning project.
These challenges presented the need for a creative financing solution. Sims endeavored to maximize the amount of bank financing, enabling IRC to draw down a portion of funds as needed, to minimize the interest costs during the prolonged construction period as opposed to a less efficient fixed rate bond financing structure where interest begins to accrue on the full amount of bonds issued at closing of the financing. In order to minimize the long-term debt service burden on operations, required the integration of short-term bank financing with long-term bond financing. This hybrid structure presented additional complexity as the banks and bond investors have different requirements, including the banks' loan-to-value (LTV) constraints. Since the senior debt for the IRC financing exceeded the 85% LTV constraint, Sims structured a tranche of subordinate debt, which will be converted to senior debt once a portion of the bank debt is repaid below the LTV constraint. This tranche of subordinate debt is Sims' proprietary Entrance Fee Redemption Bonds® which satisfies the subordinate debt requirement. In addition, Sims worked with IRC's existing bank to modify its outstanding bank bonds and integrate these bonds into the new financing structure.
Sims gained consensus with the banks and bond investors to integrate the various tranches of debt into an efficient financing structure for IRC. Sims achieved excellent execution with attractive interest rates, despite these unique challenges, and saved IRC approximately $6 million of long-term debt utilizing this hybrid financing structure. Along with securing $60.50 million in new bank financing and retaining $26.8 million of existing bank debt, Sims secured strong investor participation with over $112 million sold to institutional bond funds and over $17 million sold to individual investors.
"In nearly 30 years of doing tax-exempt financings this is one of the best results I have ever seen. Even the most optimistic amongst us would not have guessed how favorable this bond pricing would actually be," said Tim Myers, CFO, Ingleside.
ABOUT HJ SIMS: Founded in 1935 on Wall Street, HJ Sims is a privately held investment bank and wealth management firm with $2.2 billion of assets under management. HJ Sims is one of the country's oldest underwriters of tax-exempt and taxable bonds, having raised $22 billion for projects throughout the US. The firm is headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, with investment banking, private client wealth management and trading nation-wide. Pershing LLC, a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, is custodian of all client assets. HJ Sims is not affiliated with Ingleside at Rock Creek. www.hjsims.com/ourstory. Investments involve risk, including the possible fluctuation of principal. Member FINRA, SIPC. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
