Ubiquity Brands

Relationship: Tim Healy, the owner of this Chicago-based private equity firm has retained HDREP on an exclusive consulting basis since 1998, formerly as President of American Bottling Company. HDREP continues to assist the company in evaluating business investment opportunities.

Assignment 1:

Headquarters Lease - Ubiquity Brands has repeatedly engaged HDREP in connection with leases for its headquarters space.

Result: When Ubiquity was formed, HDREP recommended short-term, furnished space and negotiated a beneficial lease at 30 South Wacker, Chicago. When Ubiquity doubled in size within 12 months, HDREP relocated the company under a longer-term lease arrangement, into high-rise space at the Class A 10 South Wacker, Chicago.

Assignment 2:

Incentives Opportunity - HDREP also recognized a very lucrative incentives opportunity in the Jays Foods 99th Street manufacturing plant location; as it employed approximately 380 persons. .

Result: As part of the portfolio sale negotiation, HDREP was successful in strategically positioning Jays Foods to achieve State and Local incentives. HDREP requested City of Chicago and State of Illinois assistance to redevelop the South Side Chicago Jays plant resulting in approximately $5 million in City and State incentives.

Assignment 3:

Portfolio Analysis - In 2004, Ubiquity Brands purchased Jays Foods, an 80 year old Chicago company, out of bankruptcy. During its evaluation period of Jays Foods, Ubiquity Brands engaged HDREP to assess Jays Food’s real estate holdings. While the majority of the owned sites alone were not the most valuable of their kind, HDREP saw an excellent opportunity in them as a package. The low interest rate environment and weak dollar at the time caused demand for commercial investment opportunities to outpace supply and thus afford the most conducive seller’s market, in a “Sale/Leaseback” scenario.

Result: HDREP recommended Ubiquity Brands package all properties together in a Sale/Leaseback scenario and market it to the long list of prospective investor/buyers. After receiving numerous premium bids for the package, Ubiquity Brands sold the portfolio to a local opportunistic investor/developer who not only paid top dollar for the portfolio, but also provided Ubiquity Brands with the utmost flexibility in a leaseback to accommodate its future business plans.

NovaStar Financial, Inc.

Assignment 1:

Outsourced Real Estate Department and Real Estate Team Manager - HDREP essentially acts as NFI’s outsourced real estate department.

Result: HDREP works closely with NFI’s facilities, procurement, operations, finance and legal departments. HDREP also spearheaded the assembly and management of the NFI Real Estate Team, which includes a national architecture firm, construction manager and furniture consultant. The NFI Real Estate Team established a National Standards Program for process, procedures, design and implementation to assist in the nationwide expansion, while affording NFI significant discounts for such products and services.

Assignment 2:

Brokerage - In addition to consulting services, HDREP has performed brokerage services for numerous new NFI facilities.

Result: The list of successful transactions includes a new 40,000-square-foot office in Salt Lake City, Utah; 30,000 square feet in Richfield, Ohio; 35,000 square feet in Detroit, Michigan; and the expansion and lease extension of NFI’s 200,000-square-foot headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri.

Assignment 3:

Portfolio Evaluation and Consulting - In 2003, NovaStar Financial, Inc. (“NFI”), a national leader in the mortgage industry, retained HDREP to consult NFI and its four subsidiaries (NMI Wholesale, NMI Retail, NMI Direct and NHMI Retail) on a major expansion and restructuring of its national operations, along with a consolidation of its retail branch office portfolio. With more than 350 leases nationwide, NFI was experiencing tremendous growth in various areas of its operations, while paring down operations in other arenas to focus on its core business.

Result: Along with NFI, HDREP completed extensive evaluation of numerous metropolitan areas to determine the viability of success for various NFI business plans in those markets. This evaluation led to several expansions and the consolidation of NFI’s retail branch office locations to fewer than 100.