Waterfall for long term hold

Hello, Has anyone had experience with a structuring promoted interest waterfall for a development deal with no planned exit. The developer builds and owns their projects for the long term and planning to bring on a JV equity partner with the same long term hold strategy. I have only dealt with deals in which sponsor earns promote at exit. I am contemplating a promote based on stabilized yield on cost with multiple tiers. I would be grateful if anyone could provide examples of what they've seen/worked on. Thank you

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Best Response

I've worked on a few of these recently. We have a few options

  1. Upon stabilization go through some valuation process (3 appraisals, BOV's, refi calcs) and come up with a value for the property. Using a simulated sale and the estimated value from your valuation process calculate the total proceeds to the developer and LP reset their ownership of the asset accordingly and distribute all proceeds according to the new ownership %'s. No further promote for the GP on the transaction.

  2. Establish a "transition date" and various NOI targets for the development at that transition date. For each NOI target have a dedicated "developer success fee". This incentivises the developer to maximize NOI within a certain time frame. Payout the success fee accordingly and then split the remaining proceeds going forward with respect to your capital contributions.

  3. Build a put option into the operating agreement and, if the property is performing well, exercise that option to buyout the developer's interest and continue to hold the asset long term.

 

Obviously that is a highly negotiated point. Usually it ends up being a few % (2% - 5%) of the deal valued using the NOI achieved.

In this instance, the developer uses that money to pay out his acquisitions employees' promote and retains the ownership and long term cash flow.

When a firm's compensation structure doesn't work with the synthetic sale scenario we try to use this option to satisfy all stakeholders.

 

Just set up a tiered system based on annual cash flow yield based on total cost. I’ve built one that resets every year on month one, such that the “promote” or 2nd tier isn’t reached until the last few months. On the same model, a capital event would flow through another waterfall.

 

Instead of a reversion, use a cash-out loan to take-out the equity partner. Most equity has call provision for a minimum period to be invested. I get that some smaller equity sources structure their capital to own after the investment horizon, but for a forcasting/modeling perspective there needs to be a terminal event even if it doesn't come to fruition.

You could structure it pari-pasu as well.

 

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