Yahoo Finance Ready Capital (RC) Closes Broadmark Merger, Ups CRE Lending
Ready Capital Corporation RC completed the previously announced acquisition of Broadmark Realty Capital Inc, following shareholders’ approval of both companies.
Each share of Broadmark was converted into the right to receive 0.47233 RC shares, implying 63 million shares of Ready Capital common stock (as of Dec 31, 2022). When the deal was announced in February, Ready Capital stockholders were expected to own approximately 64% of the combined company’s stock, while Broadmark stockholders were anticipated to own the remaining 36%.
Ready Capital’s chairman and chief executive officer, Thomas Capasse, noted, “We look forward to integrating operations as we continue building a well-diversified real estate platform that now adds residential and commercial constructional loans to the ecosystem.”
The merger is a strategic fit as it leads to the creation of a preeminent non-bank lender to the lower and middle commercial real estate (CRE) market and the fourth-largest commercial mortgage REIT with a total equity capitalization of $2.8 billion.
The combined franchise will enjoy expanded geographic reach and a higher focus on construction and bridge loans in top markets. Complementary product offerings will enable the company to capture the full lifestyle of credit assets.
By adding Broadmark’s largely unlevered portfolio, RC will likely see an immediate de-leveraging impact, while deploying Broadmark’s excess capital and liquidity into existing businesses will generate marginal returns in the mid-teens range.
The combined entity will enjoy operating efficiency via expense synergies and fixed costs being spread over a larger equity base. At the deal announcement, the merger was expected to be accretive to earnings in the low-to-mid teens range in 2024.
Over the past six months, shares of RC have lost 23.6% compared with the industry fall of 17.3%.
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Currently, RC carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Inorganic Expansion Efforts by Companies
Recently, Ellington Financial LLC EFC entered a definitive agreement to acquire Arlington Asset Investment Corp. AAIC in a stock-and-cash transaction.The merger transaction is likely to provide an increased scale of operations and enhanced access to capital markets.
Per the terms of the agreement, each share of Arlington common stock will be converted into 0.3619 shares of Ellington Financial common stock or 11.7 million shares of EFC’s common stock in aggregate. Also, EFC’s external manager is to contribute cash of $3 million in the aggregate (or $0.09 per share) to the common stockholders of Arlington.
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