New York-based Box Equities, a new real estate investment group that launched eight months ago, has acquired its latest industrial holdings: a 900,000-square-foot Home Depot-anchored distribution center in Missouri and a 150,000-square-foot Pepsi distribution center in Ohio.
The company now owns and manages over 1.8 million square feet of industrial real estate. Retail and real estate veterans Haim Dabah, Mac Dabah, Ori Schwartz and Michael Dabah founded Box.
Haim Dabah has more than 40 years of experience in the retail space, which has quickly helped the firm accumulate so much retail space. Box has also been able to secure some inbound, off-market deals through brokerage relationships. “Brokers give us off-market deals because we can turn around term sheets and make quick financial decisions,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “We also have some deep-pocketed financial lenders that are standing by and helping us, as well as some private equity. So we think we can potentially triple this within the next 12 months.”
Additionally, after Box made its first purchase of a distribution center in Missouri in Q4 2020, Mac Dabah says the company was able to develop a close relationship with that tenant—Home Depot.
“From there, we’ve just seen a lot of opportunities,” Mac Dabah says. “We’re leveraging our retail relationships and our banking relationships.”
Mac Dabah says the company is focused on unlocking value for retailers and brands wishing to expand or downsize their industrial footprint and take advantage of today’s market dynamics. “We’re a very nimble shop and we’re able to move very quickly,” he says. “When it comes to retailers, they already know us, and they’re comfortable with us. So we have those existing relationships to speed things along.”
Box is also working with local economic development authorities, creating jobs and generating investment opportunities in key markets. For example, two months ago, the company acquired a 200,000-square-foot facility from a local economic development authority in Georgia within an opportunity zone.
Overall, Box is eyeing opportunities in secondary and tertiary markets. “There is a very good labor force there,” Mac Dabah says. “A lot of retailers are attracted to those labor markets. They don’t really need to be in those last-mile distribution hubs. So what we found is that there are very, very attractive opportunities out there for us.”
Despite its growth trajectory, Haim Dabah says Box wants to remain picky and look for meaningful returns. “We turned down a lot of deals that do not meet our return criteria,” he says. “It’s really about quality and not quantity. That said, we do have a lot of deals coming to us because of the quick decision making.”