Durrant Pate/Contributor

Eppley Caribbean Property Fund has acquired a portfolio of commercial real estate assets from JN Bank Limited in a deal worth J$4.55 billion.

The sale and leaseback transaction comprises a real estate portfolio of 22 buildings totalling approximately 267,000 square feet. The deal was executed through a special purpose vehicle jointly owned by Eppley Caribbean Property Fund and the Caribbean Mezzanine Fund II.

The name of the special purpose vehicle was not mentioned in Eppley’s Caribbean Property Fund’s filing with the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), where its shares are traded. The deal will also see the company owning and managing more than 30 buildings in Jamaica directly or through its subsidiaries.

It is understood that the all the acquired properties are tenanted by JN Bank, which is restructuring its real estate holdings in keeping with its revised business strategy. The last major real estate transaction in Jamaica for Eppley Caribbean Property Fund was back in December 2020 when it cut a deal with the Mahfood family-owned Rock Investments Limited to control a 50 per cent stake in Mall Plaza at Half-Way Tree in St Andrew, a popular retail shopping plaza. 

At that time, the company owned over 1.1 million square feet of tenanted, commercial real estate assets across Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad. Eppley Caribbean Property Fund is the largest listed real estate mutual fund in the Caribbean with landmark commercial properties in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. 

Since assuming control of the fund in 2018, Caribbean Property Fund’s strategy has been to scale and diversify. Since then, it has more than doubled the number of buildings owned in the portfolio and diversified geographically and by sector.