Ocean Park Advises on Sale of Courtland Partners to StepStone Real Estate

April 3, 2018 – Courtland Partners, Ltd. (“Courtland”), one of the world’s largest and most prominent real estate advisors, closed its sale to StepStone Real Estate (“SRE”), a leading real estate investment firm. The combination of the two preeminent firms creates one of the world’s leading real estate solutions providers. Ocean Park acted as exclusive sell-side advisor to Courtland.

With the integration, SRE now manages approximately US$100 billion of capital allocations from institutional investors, including over US$3 billion of assets under management, and expects to deploy over US$10 billion over the next 12 months to real estate investments through primary fund investments, co-investments, secondaries and recapitalizations. SRE now has nearly 50 professionals working from offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

SRE is part of StepStone Group LP (“StepStone”), a global private markets firm providing customized investment, portfolio monitoring and advisory solutions to some of the most sophisticated investors in the world.

Courtland, based in Cleveland, Ohio, was founded by Michael J. Humphrey in 1995 and advised institutional investors on their real estate solutions. When Mr. Humphrey passed away at the end of 2016, Courtland undertook a strategic review to determine how to best continue to provide its clients with the highest quality investment solutions and enhance its breadth of service offerings. Courtland, working with Ocean Park explored a number of options, and determined that an integration with SRE presented the most attractive option for the firm and its clients.

Ocean Park was involved in all facets of the transaction from structuring a competitive strategic review process to soliciting offers from a targeted list of strategic parties and institutional capital both domestic and international.

“The Ocean Park team developed and executed a marketing plan for Courtland that was tailored to suit the requirements of our clients as well as the needs of the owners and management,” said Steve Novick, Courtland’s Managing Principal. “The competitive process yielded a successful outcome for our clients, owners, and employees.”

“We appreciate the opportunity to have facilitated this transaction that brings together two iconic brands in institutional capital. Michael J. Humphrey built Courtland into one of the premier institutional real estate advisors. Our mission in this transaction was to find a partner and transaction terms that would uphold his legacy, while finding an attractive platform for the Courtland professionals” said Bruce Comer, an Ocean Park managing director. “This transaction highlights Ocean Park’s expertise in institutional capital and our ability to execute transactions for privately-held firms.”

 

About StepStone Real Estate
StepStone Real Estate is part of StepStone, a leading private markets firm with over 350 employees that oversees approximately US$230 billion of private capital allocations, including more than US$35 billion of assets under management. StepStone prudently integrates fund investments, secondaries and co-investments across private equity, real estate, infrastructure and private debt to create solutions that are customized according to the objectives of any private markets investment program. StepStone is a global firm with 16 offices in 11 countries around the world including in Beijing, Cleveland, Dublin, Hong Kong, La Jolla, London, Luxembourg, New York, Perth, San Francisco, São Paulo, Seoul, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Zurich. For more information, please visit www.stepstoneglobal.com.

 

About Ocean Park
Ocean Park is a boutique investment bank that advises on mergers and acquisitions, financings and restructurings with extensive experience in a broad range of industries including renewables, food and agribusiness, and institutional capital.  Ocean Park professionals have completed over 60 transactions totaling $90 billion throughout their careers.  Any securities are offered through Ocean Park Securities, LLC, a member of FINRA and SIPC.  Ocean Park’s professionals are licensed registered representatives of Ocean Park Securities, LLC.  For more information, please visit www.oceanpk.com.