A Century City commercial real estate capital advisory firm is placing a stake in Orange County.<\/p>\n
George Smith Partners has bought The Alison Company, a mortgage banking firm in Newport Beach, as part of its move into Orange County and the loan servicing business.<\/p>\n
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.<\/p>\n
With the acquisition, George Smith Partners now has direct access to a new and important line of lenders and adds a $1.5 billion servicing portfolio with over 540 loans nationwide, according to Matthew Fisher, head of mortgage banking at George Smith Partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis gives us direct correspondent access to life insurance company lenders and it gives us the ability to service the loans that we originate,\u201d Fisher told the Business Journal.
The acquisition comes at a time when the broader commercial real estate market is experiencing a downturn, with many banks writing down massive loans.<\/p>\n
By securing The Alison Company\u2019s billion-dollar portfolio and direct access to life insurance company capital, George Smith Partners is building the infrastructure to capture the wave of refinancing and distressed-debt restructuring when the market pivots up.<\/p>\n
Why The Alison Company<\/p>\n
The acquisition of The Alison Company is part of the company\u2019s broader expansion plan, following AXCS Capital\u2019s acquisition of the firm a few years ago. AXCS bought George Smith Partners, which was founded in 1992, for an undisclosed sum in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vision was always to get into the mortgage banking and loan servicing space,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n
He said that life insurance companies usually offer very competitive long-term loans, but they tend to work only with a small group of mortgage banking firms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt allows us to provide a higher class of real estate debt to our clients,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cIf clients ever have questions related to servicing the loan, they\u2019re calling somebody in our office as opposed to a servicing center who has no idea who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Founded in the early 1930s, The Alison Company has operated in Newport Beach and built longstanding relationships with life insurance company lenders.<\/p>\n
Fisher said the company\u2019s reputation and culture made it an attractive fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got just a fantastic reputation and brand in the industry,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cThe staff are really good people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Alison Company\u2019s principals, Nick Madigan and Carl Fuller, will remain with the company as managing directors under George Smith Partners.<\/p>\n
Fisher said all 66 employees are being retained, including affiliated offices in Arizona, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara and San Diego.<\/p>\n
George Smith Partners also plans to maintain The Alison Company\u2019s Newport Beach office and grow its Orange County presence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see a lot of opportunity in Orange County,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cHistorically, we\u2019ve done a lot of business there, but now we have a brick-and-mortar office and a growing team down there full time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Century City commercial real estate capital advisory firm is placing a stake in Orange County. George Smith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-331766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}