Bloomberg: Starwood Capital Plans To Buy Management Unit Of Waypoint Homes

(RTTNews) - Private real estate investment company Starwood Capital Group is planning to buy the management unit of Waypoint Homes Inc. as part of its expansion into the single-family rental business, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing three people with knowledge of the deal.

Greenwich, Connecticut-based Starwood Capital was founded by industry veteran Barry Sternlicht in 1991. The company owns businesses such as Starwood Property Trust Inc. (STWD), Starwood Real Estate Securities and Starwood Energy Group.

Starwood Capital has currently completed over 500 transactions representing assets of more than $41 billion. The company's assets under management are $26.3 billion.

According to the Bloomberg report, the purchase by Starwood Capital will include only the management unit of Waypoint and not the Oakland, California-based company's homes. Waypoint's management will operate Starwood's housing-rental business.

Starwood Property recently disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that in connection with a contemplated spin-off of its single-family rental homes, its spin-off manager entered into a non-binding letter of intent to purchase certain assets of an operator of single-family homes.

The company noted that the potential acquisition would be limited to the purchase of management-related assets and would not include the acquisition of any single-family homes or residential mortgage loans.

Waypoint Homes, which began operations in 2009, currently owns and manages more than 4,000 homes in seven U.S. states. The company said in April 2013 that it filed for an initial public offering, adding that it expects to use the net proceeds from the proposed offering to acquire and renovate single-family homes, to repay debt and for general corporate purposes. However, the company later delayed the stock sale.

Private equity firms, hedge funds and REITs are increasingly buying homes to rent, and in the process, driving growth in the single-family rental business.

STWD closed Tuesday's regular trading session at $24.28, up $0.03 or 0.12 percent on a volume of 1.31 million shares.