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COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL
— March 16-April 5, 2016
Finance
by John Rebchook
Financier Jordan Ray knows
Aspen, even though he is based
in New York City.
Parents of friends used to take
him toAspen to ski when he was
in high school and it remains one
of his favorite places in the coun-
try to hit the slopes.
“I’m going toAspen next week
to ski,” Ray, the managing direc-
tor of the debt and equity finance
group at Mission Capital, recent-
ly told the Colorado Real Estate
Journal, in a phone interview
from his office in New York.
Ray also has a professional
interest in Aspen.
He was recently part of the
Mission Capital team, which
also included Ari Hirt, Steven
Buchwald and Jamie Matheny,
that made a $10.23 million loan
for the 45-key Hotel Aspen, a
boutique hotel at 110 W. Main
St., at the entrance of Aspen’s
downtown.
The hotel is owned byHaymax
Capital LLC, headed by broth-
ers Michael and Aaron Brown,
according to public records.
“The quick story is that we
have known the sponsors, who
own this asset, for a while,” Ray
said.
Haymax also owns another
hotel across the street that it had
attempted to sell, he noted.
It was marketed by another
broker but they weren’t able to
sell it for the price they wanted,
he said.
“They hired Mission to refi-
nance this asset,” which had
debt coming due, he said.
”We were able to produce a
number of competitive offers
from debt funds and banks,”
Ray added.
“Ultimately, we arranged a
great nonrecourse, 10-year fixed-
rate prepayable loan from a
regional bank at a very low rate,
retiring the property’s existing
loan and returning capital to the
sponsor.”
The loan carries an interest
rate in the low 4 percent range,
he said.
Plus, it is very flexible.
“It is just great debt,” Ray said.
“In the future, if they want
to sell the asset and prepay the
loan,” they can do so without a
prepayment penalty, he said.
The loan was a bit of a chal-
lenge because the borrowers
wanted a nonrecourse loan, with
a low interest rate and no pre-
payment penalty, he said.
“It was a bit of a challeng-
ing transaction, but we like chal-
lenges. And we like Aspen,” Ray
said.
Mission delivered on every-
thing the borrower wanted.
“It is a fantastic deal,” Ray
said.
He said that Mission received
nine quotes from groups inter-
ested in making the loan.
The loan was on the small side
for Mission, which since it was
founded in 2002 has arranged and
structured more than $5 billion in
real estate loans on behalf of own-
ers, investors and developers.
“I would say our average piece
of financing is in the $30 million”
range, Ray said.
“We do a lot of transactions,
and while $10 million is on the
small side, we also do transac-
tions in the $100 million range,”
he said.
He said most of their business
is based on relationships.
“We are based in New York,
but more than half our business
is from outside of New York, all
around the country,” Ray said.
In fact, a lot of their recent busi-
ness has been for apartments
in Los Angeles and Las Vegas,
according to Mission’s website.
Mission hopes to do more
deals in Colorado’s mountain
resorts, as well as in the Denver
area, Ray said.
“Absolutely,” Ray said. “We
love the mountains and love the
Colorado market. We see more
opportunity in the West than
we do in the East. We are even
considering opening an office
in Denver to better cover that
Rocky Mountain region. We love
Denver and we love Salt Lake
City.”
When he was younger, he had
never stayed at Hotel Aspen.
However, he had stayed at the
Molly Gibson Lodge across the
street, which is also owned by
Haymax.
“They own clean and nice
hotels that are at a lower price
point than the Little Nell.”
Other News
n
Greg Benjamin,
senior vice
president, and
Jeff DeHarty,
associate producer, in the Den-
ver office of
NorthMarq Capital
arranged $23 million in perma-
nent financing for the Park Place
Olde Towne Apartments at 5743
Teller St. in Arvada.
The five-story building has 153
units.
Benjamin
and
DeHarty
arranged the financing through
their long-term correspondent
relationship with a major Mid-
western life insurance company.
n
Catherine Murphy
of
Chase
recently arranged about $12.5
million in financing in eight sep-
arate apartment transactions. All
of the loans are amortized over
Shown is the Hotel Aspen.
