Articles Posted in EB-5 Financing

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12 December 2023

See how JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® can help you.
Click here for the latest articles on EB-5 Financing.

Join JMBM partners Jim Butler, Catherine DeBono Holmes and David Sudeck on January 15-16, 2024, in Newport Beach, California, at the upcoming EB-5 & Global Immigration Expo, hosted by EB5Investors.com magazine and Uglobal Immigration Magazine. At the conference, these JMBM partners will be honored for their inclusion on EB5 Investors Magazine’s “Top 15 Corporate and Securities Attorneys” list for 2023. Read the Top 25 issue of EB5 Investors Magazine here. CONTINUE READING →

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03 October 2023

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JMBM is pleased to announce that partners Jim Butler, Catherine DeBono Holmes and David Sudeck have been named to EB5 Investors Magazine’s “Top 15 Corporate and Securities Attorneys” list for 2023.

Jim Butler authors the Hotel Law Blog and chairs JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group®, which provides business and legal advice to hotel owners, developers and commercial real estate investors. Jim’s team has provided clients with global business and legal advice on more than 4,700 hotels worth more than $125 billion. This advice includes both traditional and specialty financing like C-PACE and EB-5. JMBM’s team has closed more than $1.5 billion of EB-5 funding, and often helps clients source financing. Jim serves on the Public Policy Committee of the IIUSA (the EB-5 industry’s trade group for regional centers), and since 2015, he has been named one of the Top 25 EB-5 lawyers in the country.

Catherine DeBono Holmes is the chair of JMBM’s Investment Capital Law Group, and she has practiced law at JMBM for over 40 years. She helps real estate developers and business owners, brokers, investment advisers and investment managers raise and manage investment capital from U.S. and non-U.S. investors. Cathy has represented hundreds of EB-5 offering sponsors and real estate developers to obtain financing through the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program for the development of hotels, multi-family, assisted living and mixed use developments throughout the U.S. She also represents private investment fund managers, registered securities broker-dealers and investment advisers on securities offerings, business transactions and regulatory compliance issues. For the last five years, Cathy has been named as one of the top 25 securities lawyers in the country by EB5 Investors magazine. She also authors JMBM’s Investment Law Blog.

David A. Sudeck is a senior member of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® and JMBM’s Real Estate Department. His practice primarily involves the complex issues associated with hotels, resorts, vacation ownership properties, restaurants, golf courses and spas. David represents owners in the purchase and sale, development, construction, financing, leasing, and sale-leaseback of properties, and advises them on their branding and management agreements, including hotel management and franchise agreements. He has helped hotel developers source over $1 billion of EB-5 financing. David has significant experience in real estate finance and represents several financial institutions and EB-5 lenders as a special counsel to their hospitality interests. He is a frequent author on the Hotel Law Blog.

Read the Top 25 issue of EB5 Investors Magazine here. CONTINUE READING →

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25 July 2023

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Earlier this week, the Global Hospitality Group® co-hosted a breakfast briefing in Los Angeles with CREDE, a leading real estate development and project management firm. The program focused on how hotel owners and developers can reduce their cost of capital and costs of construction while filling in gaps in their capital stack through a few critical construction management techniques and exploitation of both traditional and alternative financing options.

Luigi Major, Managing Director of HVS, opened the program with an economic overview, providing an inspiring update on the state of the industry. His data shows depressed urban markets like San Francisco and San Jose are now enjoying double digit RevPAR growth, and some formerly red-hot leisure markets such as Santa Barbara have softened (-24% RevPAR growth). Business travel continues to get stronger and leisure travel is slowing. Cap rates are rising, but only by 40-90 basis points, which is modest compared to the interest rate environment. Luigi believes this is due to hotels coming into favor as a class of real estate. CONTINUE READING →

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29 April 2022

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Click here for the latest articles on EB-5 Financing and here for alternative C-PACE Financing.

JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® and EB-5 Finance Group™ are pleased to publish an updated edition of The Developer’s EB-5 Handbook for Construction Financing. This new and improved handbook provides essential resources for developers considering EB-5 financing for their next project.

The recent EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 and the reauthorization of the Regional Center Program, a crucial part of EB-5’s success, has generated renewed interest in the program’s low-cost funding opportunities. The Global Hospitality Group® has developed an approach to guide clients through the current EB-5 process with a minimal amount of financial risk and execute financing with a high degree of confidence.

The Developer’s EB-5 Handbook for Construction Financing helps developers assess potential opportunities for EB-5 financing while avoiding potential traps for the unwary.

The Handbook includes articles addressing the following topics:

  • What EB-5 is all about? What are its essentials?
  • What’s different about EB-5 this time around?
  • Is EB-5 still viable for developers now that it’s been reauthorized?
  • What is the optimum EB-5 construction financing structure for development projects?
  • How much? How cheap? How certain? How long?
  • What are the most common mistakes developers make with EB-5 financing?
  • Who do I need on my EB-5 financing team?

To download a free copy of The Developer’s EB-5 Handbook, click here.

If you would like to discuss any of the issues presented in the Handbook, please contact us. CONTINUE READING →

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25 April 2022

See how JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® can help you.
Click here for the latest articles on EB-5 Financing.

Part two of our recent article in Westlaw Today explores the opportunities available to developers and investors now that the EB-5 program is back on track. For part 1, click here.

This article was originally published on Westlaw Today on April 14, 2022.

 

What the 2022 Revitalization of EB-5 Financing Means
for Real Estate Developers and Other Entrepreneurs: Part 2

What are foreign investors looking for?

Experts expect to see a flood of interest in the EB-5 program, both from foreign investors anxious to immigrate to the US, and from real estate developers with shovel-ready projects seeking capital.

There is no limitation in the law as to the type of project that can be funded with EB-5 financing. The critical requirement is that the minimum number of 10 new US jobs for each investor will be created within a specified period of time.

In the past, up to 70 or 80 percent of all EB-5 investors selected real estate-related investments, particularly those that create a large number of new US jobs such as hotels, restaurants, night clubs, resorts, hospitals, and senior living. Alternate energy projects and a host of other new businesses, however, could tap this financing source as the program comes back online.

Under the new law, it appears that retail and office projects may also be feasible, because new jobs created by tenants of a project appear to satisfy the job creation requirement. Previously, the law excluded jobs created through “tenant occupancy.” CONTINUE READING →

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18 April 2022

See how JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® can help you.
Click here for the latest articles on EB-5 Financing.

Since the renewal of the EB-5 program this year, there has been a lot of talk about what this means for developers interested in taking on new projects. Our recent article in Westlaw Today sums up the latest information about the program. Part one is below; part two will be published next week.

This article was originally published on Westlaw Today on April 14, 2022.

 

What the 2022 Revitalization of EB-5 Financing Means
for Real Estate Developers and Other Entrepreneurs: Part 1

After being sidelined for the last few years by circumstances culminating with the pandemic and the lapse of the Regional Center Program in June of 2021, the EB-5 foreign investment program looks like it has returned as a viable option for developers seeking low-cost funding for new construction projects.

On March 15, President Biden signed the Omnibus Spending Bill, which included the “EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022,” sponsored by Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). This bipartisan bill restores viability to EB-5 by reauthorizing the lapsed Regional Center Program, a component essential to the success of EB-5.

What is EB-5?

EB-5 refers to a program that is authorized by Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. EB-5 is the fifth “Employment-Based” immigration program set forth in Section 203 and provides expedited visa processing for foreign investors making a minimum required investment in a project that directly creates at least 10 new jobs in the United States.

In short, it is both an immigration program for foreign investor immigrants, and a program that requires substantial capital investment in new business enterprises creating jobs in the United States.

The character of available financing and the projects most desirable for EB-5 investment are directly influenced by program requirements that must be met to qualify investors for a green card. For example, lower program investment minimums ($800,000 vs. $1,050,000) make projects more desirable in targeted areas of high unemployment and rural areas. CONTINUE READING →

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31 March 2022
See how JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® can help you.
Click here for the latest articles on EB-5 Financing, and here for C-PACE Financing.

The hotel development and financing world is buzzing with the news that the EB-5 program has been renewed, creating new opportunities for upcoming projects. My partner David Sudeck and I have written the short update below to help get you up to speed.

 

EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022
EB-5 is revitalized and renewed

by Jim Butler & David Sudeck

In case you haven’t heard, EB-5 is back! On March 15, President Biden signed the Omnibus Spending Bill, which included the “EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022,” sponsored by Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). This bipartisan bill restores viability to EB-5 by reauthorizing the lapsed Regional Center Program, a component essential to the success of EB-5.

What’s different about EB-5 this time around?

While the basics of the program remain the same–foreign investors provide a specified amount of capital to development projects that create American jobs, and are put on a fast track to green cards for themselves and their families–some aspects of the Regional Center Program have changed. The Regional Center Program, which was authorized until June 2021, allows investors to pool their resources to finance new projects and enterprises. Regional centers also have different requirements for the types of jobs created by a development project.

The new bill raises the minimum investment in qualified projects to $1,050,000, except in Targeted Employment Areas (TEAs) where the investment minimum will be $800,000. TEAs are areas that the program prioritizes for job creation, usually rural or areas with high unemployment–where the investment minimum remains $800,000. The new minimum investment requirement will hold for the next five years, and then will be subject to reevaluation. The bill also puts a premium on investment in rural areas by expediting visa applications for investors involved in those projects; ten percent of EB-5 visas are set aside for these investors. Infrastructure projects are also subject to lower minimum investment requirements, but do not qualify for expedited visa processing. CONTINUE READING →

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25 June 2021

See how JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® can help you.
Click here for the latest articles on EB-5 Financing here for C-PACE Financing.

Some believe the recent Behring v. Wolf case revitalizes EB-5 financing for developers because it rolls back the EB‑5 minimum investment to $500,000

On June 22, 2021, in the case of Behring Regional Center LLC v Chad Wolf, a federal court in the Northern District of California effectively invalidated the final rules for EB-5 which became effective in 2019. These rules raised the minimum foreign immigrant investment from $500,000 to $900,000 and imposed other restrictions.

Many commercial real estate developers are hoping this development will launch a new surge of EB-5 financing that could fuel their projects, as was the case for years (until a few years ago when the music stopped).

Don’t get too excited about reliable EB-5 financing coming back – but there may be a better alternative . . .

For many years, we helped developers source and close EB-5 financing for new construction and development projects. We had a 100% success rate in closing all our EB-5 deals totaling more than $1.5 billion. But we have not felt comfortable using this source of capital for several years, because none of the reliable sources we worked with were able to commit to a deal. They couldn’t raise the immigrant investor funds.

What happened? More than 85% of the funding came from Chinese immigrant investors, and the USCIS processing times for immigrant visas grew to more than 15 years! No investor wants to wait 15 years to get the immigration visa he is paying for today.

These processing backlogs effectively killed EB-5 as a reliable and robust source of financing for commercial real estate development. The court decision invalidating the final rules on EB-5 will not fix this or any other issues with the program.

But a better alternative to EB-5 financing has come mainstream and should be considered. Many are not aware of this alternative – Commercial PACE (or C-PACE).

Is C-PACE the “new EB-5” financing for commercial real estate developments? YES and NO . . .

C-PACE is the “new EB-5” financing for commercial real estate developers, but only in one notable sense: virtually every commercial real estate developer will at least seriously consider C-PACE for projects in the 2020s, just as they did with EB-5 in the 2010s.

Other than the skyrocketing popularity and even more favorable terms, the C-PACE solution has nothing at all to do with the EB-5 program CONTINUE READING →

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24 April 2019

LOS ANGELES—JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® will host Meet the Money® national hotel finance and investment conference May 6-8 at the Hyatt Regency LAX in Los Angeles.  Now in its 29th year, this annual event will bring together hotel owners, operators, developers, consultants, investors, brands, lenders and other capital providers to discuss current developments in the industry as well as strategies for the future.

“Our line-up of more than 70 speakers include top hospitality leaders who will share their expertise and deliver essential information for maximizing potential opportunities,” said Jim Butler, Chairman of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group®. “Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet some of the most active capital providers in the market for both existing and new hotel construction,” he said.

Free to all who register is a special pre-conference session on Monday afternoon May 6th – Meet The Equity: Investment Bootcamp – Preparing and Executing the Capital Raise. This interactive workshop will be led by Jonathan Falik of JF Capital Advisors, Guy Maisnik, Vice Chair of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group®, and private equity experts who will explain how they evaluate requests for capital, what makes certain deals attractive to them, and why they reject projects.

Some of this year’s panel discussions and special presentations, include:

  • Views from the Executive Suite: What’s Important Now?
  • Creative Financing: Mezz and Beyond
  • Is Select Service Still Everyone’s Favorite? Where Does it Go from Here?
  • Developing, Redeveloping and Repositioning to Optimize Value
  • Winning Strategies for Buying and Selling Hotels
  • Construction Financing Today

“Our speakers are passionate about the hospitality industry and we look forward to the enthusiastic exchange of ideas that happens every year at Meet the Money,” said Butler. “We look forward to seeing our long-time industry friends and making new ones.”

Registration can be made through the Meet the Money® website. CONTINUE READING →

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17 September 2017

EB-5, Mixed-Use Development and Deal Making: See you at the 2017 Lodging Conference

The Lodging Conference is taking place at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, October 30-November 2, 2017, and hotel lawyers from JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® will be there to visit our friends in the hospitality industry, share our knowledge, learn from the experts (and do some deals!).

At the conference, I will moderate the panel,  Navigating the EB-5 Landscape taking place at 4:00 pm on October 31st. Funding obtained through the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa program continues to play a vital role in the capital stack for new hotel development and we will provide up-to-the-minute information on the status of the program, as well as share some great success stories. To get up to speed on what’s happening with EB-5, check out my recent blogs.

Also from our team, JMBM Global Hospitality Group’s  Vice-Chair Guy Maisnik will speak on the panel Structuring Mixed-Use Development on November 1st at 11:30 am. Guy has represented developers and owners of hotel mixed-use properties for decades, and he will share his experience in financing, management agreements, and other critical issues. CONTINUE READING →

Contact Information
Jim Butler, Chairman
Global Hospitality Group®
Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP
(310) 201-3526 • jbutler@jmbm.com
www.HotelLawyer.com

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