AscendAmerica strives to be the safest choice for EB-5 Investment. Based on our team’s decades of experience in commercial real estate finance, we structure EB-5 offerings that minimize investor risk and provide a clear path to Permanent Residency and return of principal.
Job creation and project completion are essential for an effective EB-5 project. Working with developers that have a demonstrated track record for project completion and a reputation for returning principal to their lenders and investors helps ensure that the projects AscendAmerica represents are completed in a timely manner.
AscendAmerica does not consider EB-5 investment to be a substitute for developer’s equity. Experience has shown us that when a developer has no actual monetary risk, they take greater risk to maximize their upside.
To ensure that EB-5 investors secure their Permanent Residency, AscendAmerica requires project developers to have considerable “skin in the game” so that the developer seeks to protect its investment, while at the same time protecting the EB-5 investor.
AscendAmerica only hosts projects that are located within markets that have a demonstrated and consistent demand for the proposed project. This approach limits investor risk in an environment where the return on investment is fixed regardless of project location.
AscendAmerica’s team has decades of experience in real estate finance and has successfully originated billions of dollars of real estate capital. We understand the need to identify an attainable exit before we ask investors to “enter.” Accordingly, when underwriting transactions, AscendAmerica looks at conservative revenue and expense projections to determine the right amount of EB-5 capital for a particular project. Structural components are included in the transaction to both ease the exit and motivate the developer to repay capital.
EB-5 regulations require project developers to create and sustain a minimum of 10 jobs per investor. Recently, some EB-5 promoters have marketed their opportunities with “large job buffers” of 25 or 30%, which translates to 12 or 13 jobs per investor.
With the aim of reducing risk, AscendAmerica only markets transactions with at least a 40% job creation buffer, an economic projection that 14 jobs will be created per investor.
In limiting the EB-5 capital component for the development projects it hosts, AscendAmerica not only reduces the risk in the job creation arena, but also increases the likelihood of principal repayment as EB-5 will be a smaller component of the project’s capital structure.
AscendAmerica’s experience in commercial real estate finance gives us the knowledge and background to be selective in choosing developers with whom to work, projects to finance and to structure transactions that are protective of our investors’ interests. Risks associated with a potential real estate project are analyzed and the investment structure is created and adapted to address and minimize those risks.
