Hunton Andrews Kurth Advises Capstead Mortgage Corp. in Merger with Benefit Street Partners Realty Trust

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP advised Capstead Mortgage Corp. in its announced merger with Benefit Street Partners Realty Trust, Inc., a deal that will create the nation’s fourth-largest publicly traded commercial mortgage real estate investment trust.

At closing, the $1.07 billion acquisition will create a combined company renamed Franklin BSP Realty Trust. With nearly $2 billion of pro forma equity, the combined company will transition the capital base of Capstead, a residential mortgage REIT, into commercial mortgage loans, and its common stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Franklin BSP Realty Trust will be managed by Benefit Street Partners LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of international asset manager Franklin Templeton that has been managing Benefit Street Partners Realty Trust.

The Hunton Andrews Kurth team advising Capstead was led by M&A practice co-head Steven M. Haas and partner James A. Kennedy II. The team also included capital markets partner James V. Davidson and special counsel David Barbour, tax partners Kendal A. Sibley and Thomas W. Ford Jr., executive compensation partner Anthony J. Eppert, counsel Sunyi Snow, and associates Luis Andrade and Joshua Milgrom.

Hunton Andrews Kurth has extensive experience advising on significant REIT M&A deals, including representation of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust in its $5.1 billion takeover of LaSalle Hotel Properties, Service Properties Trust in its $2.4 billion acquisition of Spirit MTA REIT’s property portfolio, and NewLake Capital Partners in its merger with GreenAcreage Real Estate Corp. to create a leading cannabis REIT.