Madison Marquette Affiliate Snaps Up 144-Property Truist Portfolio

An investment arm of Madison Marquette specializing in corporate property acquisitions has closed on a 144-property portfolio, the buyer announced Thursday.

The properties were all formerly owned by affiliates of Charlotte-based Truist bank, according to a Bisnow analysis of deed records, and they sold for a range of prices. The properties are located across eight states: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

Lemonade, Madison Marquette's affiliate, is focused on vacant and soon-to-be-vacant property portfolios that it can acquire without "cherry-picking" individual properties, according to a press release.

"This transaction begins the process of transforming vacant properties back into useful assets for dozens of communities," Madison Marquette principal Josh Anderson, who oversees the program, said in a statement. "Lemonade allows corporate sellers to remain focused on their core business with the confidence that we have the commitment and resources to successfully reposition their former properties."

Below is a map of the Maryland and Virginia properties included in the deal. 

The portfolio spans 120 communities, and the properties have a wide range of values. A property in Columbia, Maryland, for instance, sold for $990K, while a property in Baltimore County sold for $10K, property records show.

Lemonade declined to reveal the overall portfolio price.

Truist was created through a merger of BB&T and SunTrust Bank in 2019. The $66B merger created the nation's sixth-largest bank at the time. 

The merger also led to the closures of 822 bank branches, the Washington Business Journal reported Thursday. That follows a long-term decline in the number of bank branches accelerated by the pandemic, when the branch closure rate doubled, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.