A team of industry veterans has established a new firm, taking over the affordable housing assets of Miller-Valentine Group (MVG).
MVAH Partners is led by managing partners Brian McGeady and Michael Riechman, who were part of the executive team at MVG. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“The discussion that started the transaction was Mike and I wanted to have an organization that was 100% focused on affordable housing,” McGeady says.
MVG, a large company involved in several different areas of real estate and construction, was also looking to create more focus as well, he says, noting the idea was brewing for more than a year before a deal was recently closed.
Rather than a company purchase, McGeady and Riechman executed an asset purchase, buying around 90 properties with approximately 5,500 units. MVAH Partners also brought over approximately 150 development, property management, and administration staff members.
As a result, most of the team that was involved in the affordable housing business at MVG is now at MVAH Partners.
The one major change is the company will not be performing its own construction. Instead, it will be hiring third-party general contractors. This will allow the team to hire local experts in the field of construction with the right relationships with the local labor and subcontractors, according to McGeady, noting that it will also allow MVAH to focus on what it does best, develop, own, and operate.
“Being a smaller organization, we think we’ll be more nimble to move where the opportunities are in the affordable housing marketplace and take advantage of shifting the organization as we see different opportunities come up,” he says.
The Ohio-based company will continue to make 9% low-income housing tax credit transactions its core business in its 15-state territory. In addition, it will also focus more resources on doing new construction tax-exempt bond developments. The company also intends to create a strategy for acquisitions, according to Riechman.
“Our overall goal is to grow a large affordable portfolio through new development using 9% and 4% housing credits while also being able to acquire affordable properties and portfolios,” Riechman says.
While MVAH Partners is now separate from MVG, the two companies will remain involved as joint-venture partners in a handful of developments during the next two years.
“We cannot thank Miller-Valentine enough for the support they have given us. We are very excited to take what we started at MVG and to grow our new organization with 100% focus on our passion for affordable housing,” McGeady says.
