In the News

Common Bond Capital Partners Acquires 222 Finished Residential Lots at Rolling Hills in Jacksonville

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(February 25, 2013) Common Bond Capital Partners LLC has acquired 222 finished residential lots and 439 entitled, unimproved lots in the master-planned community of Rolling Hills in Clay County near Jacksonville, Florida. The acquisition is the company's first Florida acquisition as part of its strategy to acquire and turn around large scale, land development projects that failed during the recession under the burden of too much municipal bond debt.

Formed in January 2012, Common Bond Capital Partners provides capital, financial know-how and real-estate development expertise to restructure defaulted municipal bond issues and restart stalled land development projects. The company works to build mutually beneficial alliances among existing bondholders, the communities affected by recession-era bond defaults, and new sources of development funding and expertise.

"At Rolling Hills, our initial efforts will be to pay tax and assessment delinquencies left by the prior owner," said Bill Huck, Managing Director and CEO of Common Bond Capital Partners. "We will also provide dollars to improve maintenance and restart some of the recreation programs that had been left unfunded. The next steps will be to identify new home builders who will purchase lots and build homes to complete various neighborhoods in the community."

"This will be a 3 to 7 year project. Our team earned its credentials in resolving bond defaults and turning around stalled land developments following the 1990's recession. Rolling Hills will be managed by our new partner David Guy, who successfully managed land development and homebuilding for some of the largest companies active in Florida and elsewhere in the Southeast."

Common Bond recently announced the expansion of the firm's ownership to include both David Guy and real estate and finance attorney Ellen Jamason. Guy's Florida experience includes operations, finance and management at such major companies as The Fortress Group, Pulte Home Corporation and Arvida/Disney. Jamason joins Common Bond from a career that includes work as a partner at two major international law firms and as Senior Director of Real Estate and Site Development for Cisco Systems.

Aligning the Interests of Key Parties

As part of its Rolling Hills project acquisition, Common Bond also acquired a portion of the $12.5 million defaulted municipal bonds that encumber the development. "A critical element of our strategy was the understanding and support of the other institutional bondholder," said Huck. "They are very experienced investors in this asset class and offered a number of good ideas that will help both them and us going forward."

"This ‘win-win' theme is illustrated by our company's name: Common Bond Capital Partners. Our business goal is to succeed by being the bondholders' strongest ally. We provide capital, experience and muscle to help solve problems that caused their investment to decline in value."

"While the conventional private equity approach is to attempt to buy distressed bonds at deep discounts from desperate owners facing cash or regulatory pressures to sell, Common Bond proposes a strategy that aligns interests of key parties,” said Huck. “Most land-secured bonds are owned by sophisticated institutional investors with just as much cash, and more municipal bond sector experience, than the private equity opportunists who sometimes low-ball bids on distressed bonds. The Common Bond approach typically has significantly greater appeal to both existing bondholders and the communities involved. Even so, we also intend to be a source of liquidity for bondholders, as needed."

Common Bond is currently evaluating defaulting municipal bond projects in Florida, Virginia and California as potential additions to their work-out portfolio.

For additional information on Common Bond Capital Partners investment opportunities and solutions to municipal bond defaults, please visit the company's website at www.commonbondcap.com.