Experience applied.
Objectives achieved.

Turning knowledge into investment value.

As president and sole shareholder of Triple Net Equities, Inc., Robert Arbour has closed transactions with a total sales price of $1 billion. His work encompasses credit net leased real estate, corporate portfolios and financing structures designed for individual investment objectives. His experience spans individual investors, corporations and institutions, with transactions ranging from $2 million to large national portfolios. His largest career transaction was the approximately $175 million, 38-property Motel 6 portfolio sale from US Realty to Sumitomo Bank.

Robert’s approach begins with understanding what a client wants to accomplish. He draws on a deep understanding of tax and accounting issues, property economics and financing to see how the elements of a transaction can work together to produce a better investment structure.

His accomplishments include creating millions of dollars in property value by increasing net operating income through solar electric sales to building tenants, arranging financing to improve cash distributions and after-tax cash flows, and completing transactions involving unusual ownership interests, including a Walgreen store situated on air rights.

Experience across the transaction

That experience includes the Elanco headquarters sale in Indiana from a corporation to an individual investor, Fleetwood’s portfolio sale to an institutional buyer, and a Walgreen store on air rights sold by one individual to another. In the United Technologies transaction, its Carrier subsidiary sold the property to a partnership in which Robert was a partner.

Robert has structured investments through both the implementation and unwinding of Section 467 leases. His experience also includes arranging long-term, fully accruing financing, with three assignments: Black & Veatch, Anthem Insurance and the First Bank Building in St. Paul, Minnesota. These assignments reflect his ability to apply tax, accounting and financing knowledge to individual investment objectives.

His assignments have included consulting for NYSE and Fortune 500 companies, zero coupon residual value financing, letter-of-credit-backed lower floaters with and without collars, high-leverage transactions addressing partnership issues, corporate structures involving FASB accounting rules, and real estate exchanges. Financing experience spans life insurance companies, banks, thrifts and conduits.

He has represented buyers and sellers including Wachovia Securities, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank Leasing and Finance, CRIC Capital, Mesirow Net Lease, Fleetwood Enterprises, Zurich Structured Finance and American Retirement Corporation, as well as individual investors.

Robert has served as special manager for a pool of Walgreen stores on behalf of Wachovia Securities, as special manager for three unrelated single-member limited liability companies, and as nominee owner for three properties acquired by Fleetwood.

Education and early career

Robert holds an undergraduate degree from The Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree from Rutgers University with a concentration in economics. Before entering real estate, he worked as a labor market analyst and employment program planning director.

Professional background

Robert began his real estate career in 1979 with the David Houston Company, leasing and selling property to industrial and office occupants. He subsequently became acquisition director for Pan American Properties, the British Coal Miners’ Pension Fund’s United States real estate program in New York. Since 1983, he has worked as an independent real estate broker and advisor, and he has led Triple Net Equities for more than two decades.

His licensing history began in New Jersey in 1979, followed by a Texas broker’s license in 1984 and a California broker’s license in 1988. He also completed several real estate appraisal courses at New York University.

Industry leadership

A member of the Urban Land Institute since 1994, Robert organized and chaired Urban Marketplace in 2000 to connect participants in real estate and economic opportunities in urban Los Angeles. He also organized and chaired FutureBuild, focused on renewable energy and technology in real estate.

He served as chapter president of Lambda Alpha, the honorary real estate society, in 1994. His professional involvement has also included membership in CMSA, USGBC and ISCS.