Ready Capital Announces Deal To Acquire Red Stone

Ready Capital Corp., a  New York-based real estate finance company, today announced it has acquired Red Stone and its affiliates in exchange for cash and stock. Red Stone is a real estate finance and investment company that provides innovative financial products and services to the multifamily affordable housing industry.

Red Stone's management team, led by John Sokolovic, and all employees have joined Ready Capital, the company said. The acquisition will further diversify Ready Capital's business and represents its commitment to affordable housing.

"Affordable housing finance presents a significant growth opportunity that will benefit our shareholders by expanding our presence in a sector with low correlation to our other businesses," said Tom Capasse, chairman and CEO of Ready Capital. "Moreover, the team at Red Stone has enormous talent and we look forward to building on their success collaboratively in the future."

Sokolovic, chairman and co-founder of Red Stone, also praised the deal. "By joining the team at Ready Capital, we are confident that we can continue to grow and serve our clients, financial partners, and the affordable housing community while adding value for Ready Capital's shareholders," he said.

As part of the deal, Ready Capital assumed certain Red Stone guarantees of secured indebtedness.

Ready Capital received financial advice on the transaction from Houlihan Lokey and legal advice from Clifford Chance US LLP.  Red Stone received financial advice on the transaction from Riparian Partners and legal advice from Jones Day.

Ready Capital s a multi-strategy real estate finance company that originates, acquires, finances and services small- to medium-balance commercial loans. It specializes in loans backed by commercial real estate, including agency multifamily, investor and bridge, as well as SBA 7(a) business loans. Headquartered in New York, N.Y., Ready Capital employs over 500 lending professionals nationwide.

Red Stone is a privately-owned real estate finance and investment company that provides innovative financial products and services to the multifamily affordable housing industry throughout the United States. It focuses on providing acquisition, development-period, and permanent mortgage capital on properties financed utilizing tax-exempt and taxable bonds. Since its founding in 2002, Red Stone has provided in excess of $4.6 billion in mortgage debt and equity capital used to finance 63,032 apartment units in affordable and mixed-income rental properties.

For more on the deal, click here.