MIAMI, Oct. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The Miami office of Ackman-Ziff has arranged $38.7M in capital for Chieftain Residential, an affiliate of Dev Motwani’s Merrimac Ventures, the owner of a 480-home SFR portfolio located in the Atlanta metro area.  This loan was facilitated through the Freddie Mac SFR Pilot Program, a recently developed financing arm of FHLMC intended for larger SFR portfolios. As of August 2018 this program and its FNMA counterpart have been suspended by the agencies, thus this is one of the last portfolios funded.   Proceeds of the loan were used to pay off an acquisition loan with CapitalSource, capital upgrades to the portfolio, as well as return of capital to investors.

“We’re excited to close this loan, our first agency transaction, and one of only a few loans to be included under Freddie’s Pilot Program.  We believe it’s a testament to the quality of the portfolio as well as our management team.  It takes a lot of work to close a loan with nearly 450 underlying assets, and I think our team at Chieftain and Ackman did an excellent job executing a fairly complex transaction,” said Dev Motwani, CEO of Chieftain Residential.

The Chieftain team was led by Dale Reed, and included Dina Kreutter, Alejandro Paula and Jennifer Britton.  The Ackman-Ziff team included Melissa Rose and Marc Warren.

About Chieftain Residential
Chieftain Residential, an affiliate of Dev Motwani’s Merrimac Ventures and based in Fort Lauderdale, FL, is focused on acquiring distressed residential land and operating a portfolio of Single Family Rental homes.  Chieftain has owned properties in both Georgia and Texas, with its SFR portfolio concentrated around the Atlanta Metro Area.  It has owned and operated over 500 homes in the area, acquiring properties through foreclosure auctions, direct purchases as well as portfolio acquisitions.

About Ackman-Ziff
Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group (“AZ”) is the industry’s preeminent boutique real estate capital advisory firm.  AZ offers a wide variety of cutting-edge commercial real estate capital markets financing solutions, including debt and mezzanine financing, preferred and joint venture equity, sponsor equity, and investment sales. In business for over 90 years, the privately held company is headquartered in New York City with offices in Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston.