ST. PETERSBURG, Florida - Bison Financial Group, a real estate advisory firm based here, announces the closing of a $7,500,000 mini-perm loan used to pay off higher rate bridge debt and capture the significant equity build up in the property since the project was first acquired and repositioned 2 years ago. The property is a 320 unit apartment complex located in Tampa, Florida. The loan was placed with a community bank for the borrower, a New York based investment group. The fixed rate loan was structured for a 24-month term at an aggressive interest rate below the current Prime Rate.

According to David Repka, President of Bison, "We arranged the bridge loan on the property two years ago so we knew the time for repayment was coming up fast. In late 2004 we studied the property and the rental market and presented the ownership group with our findings: significant value would still be able to be added over the next two years. Rather than finding a new lender and locking in a long-term loan with significant prepayment penalties we suggested negotiating an earn-out with the current lender. This granted an additional two years to achieve more upside and enabled the borrower to recapture the equity spent to rehab the property. We figured two more years would give them enough time to enhance the economics of the property further for a refinance or sale. The last two years were very kind to the property and the area such that a new loan 25% larger than the bridge loan was able to be achieved."

Jared Repka, one of the Principals of Bison said, "We have a good team, systems and procedures to close time sensitive loans. Because we do so many of these fast paced loans the process has become quite seamless with little stress on the borrower."

Bison works with investors and developers nationwide that invest in multi-tenant income producing properties and develop/turnaround value-added properties. The principals of Bison are the Florida Partners for Regional Capital Group, one of the nations leading private, commercial real estate lenders.