Opportunities Blocked

Storybuilt Development was the company's transition to a 'lean and mean' developer to ensure our existing developments would be executed well for the surrounding communities and people who would live or work in and around them. At the time we had three primary relationships with real estate ‘partners’ as our equity sources for projects: Partners Group, Craddick Family, CalSTRS. While loans would continue their unfavorable fall, we had lined up another equity partner to help tip the scales (who was also a second Storybuilt Global capital source below, as a back-up option or follow-on investment to this likely fourth large real estate partnership, i.e. Joint Venture). Furthermore, in combination with Storybuilt Global’s forthcoming capital and connections, we had a legitimate short list of additional capital providers. The transition was virtually complete, and our expected was for new pipeline to be considered cautiously for long-term planning and success.

Storybuilt Global was not about saving the company like Storybuilt Development was – it was about a bigger/better business with additional leaders involved. Initially helped by an investment bank and capital markets team members who assembled an impressive data room and set of forecasting tools, Diepenbrock carried on in the toughest capital market the U.S. has experienced since the great depression…therefore it's reasonable it would take 9 months to line up two good options. The final agreement was different than what was initially set out for, but we’d found the right group and had a great back-up option to boot. We’d also expanded the capabilities and lined up the right people to make this a smaller piece of a much larger pie. The timing was excellent as well: as expected, we witnessed rock-bottom deals from that point forward, the best of which are gone and valuations double or more now - particularly small businesses across the spectrum of real estate, and Storybuilt Global was in line for a large handful of them.