Tarrant Business

Southlake real estate firm buys eight shopping centers in Texas

Southlake-based N3 Real Estate has paid Dallas-based St. Ives Realty $25 million for its Texas retail portfolio, the firm announced.

The portfolio includes eight properties totaling 172,329 square feet and are all centers located next to Walmart Supercenters in Alamo, Dumas, Hereford, Weatherford, Red Oak and Sweetwater. Shopping center tenants include Verizon, GameStop, Dollar Tree, Rent-a-Center, and Beall’s, among others.

N3 paid for the portfolio through its $250 million Retail Development Investment Fund.

N3 has bought and developed more than 200 single and multi-tenant retail projects for national and local retailers across the U. S. since it was founded in 2004.

_ Sandra Baker

Familiar Fort Worth names on Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans list

With the exception of relocating Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton's residence from Parker County to Fort Worth (mistakenly, as far as we know), the Tarrant area members of Forbes magazine's annual list of the wealthiest Americans are pretty much unchanged this year. Walton is No. 8 on the 2012 list, with a net worth of $26.3 billion. (She listed her residence as 11500 Interstate 20, the address of her 3,200-acre Rocking W Ranch outside of Millsap, in October 2011 when she was charged with DUI on her way home from her 62nd birthday party in Fort Worth.) She's followed by investor Robert Bass (tied at No. 151 with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at $2.7 billion), investor David Bonderman (No. 170, $2.6 billion), investor Richard Rainwater (No. 206, $2.3 billion), brothers Ed and Lee Bass (tied at No. 239, $2 billion), and Sid Bass (No. 271, $1.8 billion). All have been on the list for years.

Dallas area residents on the list, in addition to Jones, include banker Andrew Beal, investor Harold Simmons, oilman and real estate developer Ray Lee Hunt, investor Robert Rowling, oilman Trevor Rees-Jones, investor H. Ross Perot Sr., oilman Timothy Headington, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, pipeline operator Kelcy Warren, banker Gerald J. Ford, Texas Rangers co-owner Ray Davis, real estate developer H. Ross Perot Jr., investor T. Boone Pickens, telecommunications operator Kenny Troutt, and online media developer Todd Wagner.

The complete list is here.

-- Jim Fuquay

 

Del Frisco's sets IPO price at $14 to $16

Southlake-based Del Frisco's Restaurant Group, which in January said it plans to go public, on Tuesday filed disclosures showing it hopes to issue up to 8.05 million shares at $14 to $16 each. The company will sell 4.33 million of the shares, raising an estimated $57.2 million after expenses, while its largest shareholder, Lone Star Fund, plans to sell at least 2.67 million shares, or up to 3.7 million shares if the demand exists. (Lone Star bought a predecessor corporation in 2006.) An issue date has not been announced, but the shares will trade under the ticker DFRG on the Nasdaq. Del Frisco's said it will use $50 million to pay down outstanding debt.

According to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Del Frisco's last year reported $9 million in net income on $201.6 million in sales. That compared to $8.7 million in earnings on $165.6 million in revenues in 2010. It operates 32 restaurants in 18 states under three names: Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House, Sullivan's Steakhouse, and Del Frisco's Grille.

-- Jim Fuquay

TPG Growth, SurveyMonkey team for acquisition

TPG Growth, with offices in Fort Worth, said today that together with web-based survey firm SurveyMonkey it has agreed to buy MarketTools Inc., which provides software for market research. Terms were not disclosed. TPG, part of the big TPG Capital  private equity firm, will retain San Francisco-based MarketTools' lines of business that focuses on custom market research and customer feedback. SurveyMonkey will take MarketTools' operations that include online surveying, sampling and data quality. TPG Growth says it has $3 billion under management.

-- Jim Fuquay

Private equity firms put nearly $8 billion into Texas deals in 2010, firm says

Private equity firms invested $7.8 billion in 136 Texas companies in 2010, making the state fourth behind California, Illinois, and New York in deals, the Private Equity Growth Capital Council reports today.

Nationally, equity firms invested $148 billion in 1,234 companies last year, representing 51 percent of private equity deals worldwide, the council said.

The top three states in equity deal value:

1. California: $16.2 billion, 195 companies, 14.9 percent of U.S. deal value
2. Illinois: $10.7 billion, 61 companies, 9.9 percent.
3. New York: $10.1 billion, 95 companies, 9.3 percent

Texas’ equity deals accounted for 7.2 percent of deal value.

Click here to view the report.

- Scott Nishimura