One term sheet prices control, the other prices return. Which is cheaper?
I sold a small business last year and have about 600k I'd rather partner with than operate myself. Two operators I've spent real time with have both sent term sheets for deals closing in Q1. Same check size, wildly different structures, and I've been going in circles for two weeks.
Operator A. 41 unit workforce apartment deal, he's done eleven of them, roughly 8M capitalization. My 600k is about 35% of a 1.7M equity raise, the rest from repeat money. Offer: 8% pref, accruing and compounding, then 80/20 to me above it, no promote catch-up, no acquisition fee. His co-invest is 6% of equity. He wants complete discretion post-closing except for sale and refi. His actual words were that he isn't running a deal by committee again.
Operator B. Two adjacent light industrial buildings, 5.2M all in, 1.4M equity, my 600k is 43%. Offer: 7% pref paid current from day one, 70/30 above it, 2% acquisition fee (104k), 1% asset management on cost. In exchange I get consent over budget variances above 7.5%, a seat on a two person management committee, and a removal right on defined events of default. His co-invest is 11% of equity, and he's put real cash in each of his last four deals.
So A pays me more per dollar and tells me to sit down. B pays me less, charges a fee, and hands me a lever. On a 5 year hold my model has A at a wider spread by about 180 basis points of IRR, assuming both hit plan, which is exactly the assumption I can't check.
What I'm stuck on is how to value the removal right and the committee seat when I've never had to use either. If they're theater I should take A. If they're real, B's 104k fee is cheap insurance. Anyone actually exercised a removal right in a two member JV?