How to buy out a GP interest from a sh*tty operator?
Long time voyeur on this website, but first time poster.
Backstory:
I am part of a satellite regional office which opened a few years ago, main office is on the opposite side of the country. Me and two other VP-level acquisitions people, and one senior partner who runs the office. We pitch ourselves as owner/operators, and structure deals as one-off joint ventures with LP equity.
Fast forward, we have been able to acquire 3 properties in our 18 months with the firm, have lost out on a bunch of other deals (mainly due to a lack of support from our main office, as they backed out of a few deals we had in contract due to lack of equity, and actually screwed up the JV negotiations on a few others deals we were 95% there on). Main office has been completely disconnected with our satellite group, and they can't understand why we haven't acquired more, etc. Completely oblivious to where we are in the cycle, and how tough it can be to get deals done with no capital. When you hear stories about fee shops pretending to be operators, expecting massive fees while putting up 2% of the total equity, that pretty much describes my firm.
Long story short, they came to the decision that it was too expensive to keep our satellite open, and they want to shut it down. Probably a smart move economically. The deals we have acquired have all been with the same LP group, and have a co-GP (also the same in each deal). 90% LP, 8% co-GP, and 2% my firm's money. The capital partners have already told our small group that their preference would be for us to buy out the 2% interest and continue managing the deals, and continue to look at future deals together. They like our satellite group, and are pretty irritated and pissed off with our executive staff due to them pulling the plug on us. The president/owner of my company (who actually owns the 2% equity piece) has also indicated that his preference would be to sell his position, get his name off the loan carve-outs, and cut ties completely. However, he wants to keep a piece of the promote, which seems asinine but given his huge ego, it's not a surprise that he's trying to make up some of his money on the back end. He offered this deal to the senior partner (my boss) in our satellite, and he said no thanks. That leaves the myself and two others (who are the people actually doing the asset management work on the properties) to try and figure this out.
The total dollar amount for the GP is roughly $1MM. So it's not a huge number, but I'd need someone to be able to write the check, take on the non recourse loan carve outs, and also be open to the concept of buying into a small portfolio with 3 guys who would be partners and continue doing deals with a programmatic LP and co-GP partner. I would think that this idea would be appealing, as there is an existing base of assets providing solid fee revenue to support the platform. There is a double promote structure in place such that the $1MM would proforma out to a 4-5x multiple and 38% IRR over the 5 year hold (these properties are all less than 12 months into their hold period).
At this point I am just bouncing this idea around and wanted any feedback I could get, good bad or ugly. I am also wondering who or what I should be looking to pitch this idea to. Trying to go out and raise the $1MM from multiple investors seems messy, vs having one guy or a family office etc simplify the process and build a larger portfolio around the one who would be buying into. Who the fuck should I be pitching this deal to?
I know someone very opportunistic that would be interested in exploring this opportunity. Please PM me.
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