Situs for sale

Situs has appointed investment bank Raymond James to find a buyer for the business.

The loan servicing, real estate advisory and asset management firm is aiming to find a suitor by the year-end.

The business is currently owned by Ranieri Partners, Brookfield Investment Management, the South Carolina Pension Fund and members of the Situs management team.

It is thought that the sale could attract a range of potential buyers such as rival loan servicers looking to increase in size, private equity firms seeking to grow the company, or buyers of loan portfolios eager to use Situs to service their own portfolios. Its European operation is currently the special servicer of €700m of assets in Europe; it employs 60 people and Situs also has 40 employees in the US;

The loan servicing industry is at something of a turning point as CMBS servicing opportunities dry up,  with firms looking to diversify away from low-margin, high turnover work and instead focus on more lucrative, transaction advisory work.

Founded in 1988, Situs was acquired in 2011 by Helios AMC, a joint venture between Ranieri Partners and Deutsche Bank, although the latter no longer has any interest in the business. In 2012 the business expanded its European operation by buying Deutsche Bank’s European CMBS loan servicing platform DECO, which at the time had an outstanding balance of €6bn.