WINTER HAVEN, FLA. AND NEW YORK CITY — JLL has arranged the sale-leaseback of 165 retail branches in six states that are occupied by SouthState Bank, a regional lender based in the Tampa area, in a transaction valued at approximately $467 million.
The buyer is Blue Owl Capital (NYSE: OWL), and the transaction was executed through various funds managed by the New York City-based asset management firm. The bank branches are located throughout Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia and total approximately 1.2 million square feet.
Terms of the sale-leaseback call for SouthState Bank to continue to occupy the branches on 15-year, triple-net leases with 2 percent annual rent increases. SouthState Bank will also continue to operate the branches without any changes to its product or service offerings.
Alex Sharrin, Coler Yoakam, Brian Shanfeld, Jeffrey Cicurel, Josh Katlin, Michael Roberts, Josh Hirsch and Andrew Weir of JLL structured the transaction on behalf of SouthState Bank. The lender did not specify what the proceeds from the sale might be allocated toward, saying only that funds would “enhance its balance sheet.”
Others involved in the deal commented on the appeal of the structure itself in today’s market.
“Sale-leaseback transactions continue to create accretive balance sheet and capital optimization strategies for many financial institutions,” said Sharrin. “The ability to free up unrealized capital on the balance sheet by means of a sale-leaseback provides financial institutions with increased optionality.”
SouthState Bank is the banking subsidiary of SouthState Corp. (NYSE: SSB), a financial services company based in Winter Haven. The bank services 1.5 million customers in southeast U.S. states, as well as Texas and Colorado.
Blue Owl Capital employs 1,100 professionals globally and had $250 billion in assets under management as of year-end 2024 across three verticals: credit, GP strategic capital and real assets. The company’s stock price closed on Friday, Feb. 28 at $21.53 per share, up from $18.10 a year ago, a nearly 19 percent increase.
— Taylor Williams