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April 26
1906 - Bobby Batugo, World Champion Mixologist in the 1970s, born in The Philippines [story]
Bobby Batugo


Will the second time be a charm for Five Point?

Nearly two years after announcing – and then scrapping – plans to raise cash via the New York Stock Exchange, the would-be developer of roughly 21,000 homes west of Interstate 5 in the Santa Clarita Valley filed new papers Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission to take the company public.

According to Friday’s registration statement, Lennar Corp., which is already Five Point’s biggest investor, “has entered into a securities purchase agreement with us to purchase $100 million of (new stock in) Five Point Operating Co. LLC.”

Also, hedge funds managed by Third Avenue Management LLC and Castlelake L.P. have “indicated an interest in each purchasing $25 million.” Any unpurchased shares “will be offered by the underwriters to the general public.”

The joint bookrunners on the deal are Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, RBC Capital Markets, Wells Fargo Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, Evercore ISI, Zelman Partners LLC and JMP Securities.

The owner of the assets once known as The Newhall Land and Farming Co., Five Point Holdings LLC attempted in July 2015 to raise construction capital through a public offering but withdrew the offer when the California Supreme Court put a hold on the Newhall Ranch project.

Five Point described the situation in the “risk factors” section of Friday’s filing:

“On November 30, 2015, the Supreme Court of California issued a ruling under CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) and other state statutes, which requires the CDFW (California Department of Fish and Wildlife) to reassess certain analyses and determinations related to greenhouse gas emissions and the protection of a certain fish species completed by CDFW in connection with approving the EIR (environmental impact report) for Newhall Ranch. The ruling also requires the County of Los Angeles to reassess its analyses and determinations related to greenhouse gas emissions in connection with the EIR and to reassess its previous related approvals.”

The court ruling “has resulted in the need to reassess certain elements of the project’s potential impacts, and will result in the need to modify certain aspects – such as specific mitigation measures or project design features – related to the development plan for Newhall Ranch, and which could reduce the number of home sites or amount of commercial square feet we are able to develop, increase our financial commitments to local or state agencies or organizations or otherwise reduce the profitability of the project, or adversely affect the length of time or the cost required to obtain CDFW’s approval of the corrected EIR.

“In addition, the ruling has resulted in delays in construction that have been taken into account in our currently anticipated delivery dates … but could result in further delays beyond those currently anticipated and reflected in our anticipated delivery dates, or changes in the sequencing of our communities, and are likely to increase our development costs.

“We also are involved in related lawsuits regarding the approvals and permits that have been issued for the Mission Village and Landmark Village development areas within Newhall Ranch, which could result in similar impacts. We continue to assess when and under what circumstances we may begin infrastructure development at Newhall Ranch based on the status of these pending lawsuits.”

Based in Aliso Viejo, Five Point is also the owner-developer of 800 acres of bayfront property in San Francisco known as the San Francisco Shipyard and Candlestick Point, as well as the 2,100-acre Great Park Neighborhoods in Orange County. Five Point is the development manager (but not owner) of the Treasure Island and Concord communities in San Francisco.

By far its largest asset, Newhall Ranch encompasses roughly 15,000 acres and is “designed to include approximately 21,500 home sites and approximately 11.5 million square feet of commercial space,” according to Five Point’s latest filing.

“Newhall Ranch will continue the tradition of excellence in community planning established by Valencia as it meets the needs of a growing population in Los Angeles County,” the filing states. “With an ideal location near existing jobs and infrastructure … Newhall Ranch is expected to be a regional commercial and entertainment center. At Newhall Ranch, we plan to build five elementary schools, a junior high school, a senior high school, four fire stations, a sheriff’s station and a public library.”

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22 Comments

  1. Trudy Trump Trudy Trump says:

    Somebody stop this!!! Doesn’t anyone remember the nightmare after the northridge earthquake being trapped in this valley? And now tens of thousands more reside here now??? Unconscionable

  2. Owen Ceebee Owen Ceebee says:

    F’ing scum developers

  3. There’s only one way out.

  4. Rebecca Hay Rebecca Hay says:

    I love how when everyone wanted to move to the SCV, they were only too happy to have available housing. But, now that they are all settled, they want the development to stop. I was born and raised here in the SCV. My extended family is here. I have chosen to raise my own family here. I have a business here. And, we have been looking to buy a house in the area for over a year now and there’s nothing available that makes sense for us. I, for one, am hopeful that this development does go through. I deserve to own a home here as much as anyone…in my own community.

  5. John Gilbert John Gilbert says:

    Yeah, Most people moved here to get away from the sewer south, But how and when does it stop? When we look like the SFV? Wall to wall developement, added traffic & stoplights, All of the surrounding ridge lines built over? The I-5/405 corridor is developed from Sylmar’s Balboa Blvd overcrossing south to Camp Pendleton. Over 100 miles of solid developement. Millions of people. And when the open spaces are gone, they’re gone forever. Why in the hell do we want that here? And if you read the crime blogs on this FB page, there never used to be the extensive and violent crime that we have now except in the last 10 years. SCV is already looking like the rat experiment where they are breeding out of control in a confined space, becoming neurotic and eating each other alive. (Probably explains the driving, too). And btw, new housing will not add to the availibily of more housing, because it will pull the housing prices and rents up with it (and you haven’t lived until you had 12 illegals aliens renting the 996 sq/ft house next door, Hoo-ya!) . So, you might as well save up your nickels and dimes now & wait for the bubble to burst…again. And, it will as whatever safeguards that were put into place to keep 2008 from happening again are being made to go away as we speak 8-)

  6. Oh great this is all we need

  7. Steve says:

    The last time they raised money, didn’t they bankrupt themselves, and buy the property back? I believe that CALPRS is still paying for that one.

    • Coastal Sage says:

      CALPERS is not exactly “still paying” for its ill-fated investment in LandSource/Newhall Land which was wiped out in their Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware.

      CALPERS walked away from and wrote off the entire $900+ Million in principal it invested in Newhall Land and LandSource at the start of the bankruptcy case. They didn’t even bother to participate in the court hearings over the case’s 2 years. CALPERS also indirectly paid so much in investment management fees to Lennar and a guy named MacFarlane before and during the bankruptcy their total “out of pocket” was $1 Billion.

      After that loss, and after CALPERS former Executive Director plead guilty to taking a bribe on another unrelated deal, at the behest of somebody in the State hierarchy a prominent Los Angeles law firm had one of its litigation partners investigate “who should be sued” as a result of intentional or negligent conduct by those involved in the CALPERS/LandSource debacle. I know about that because I supervised/mentored a young lawyer a long time ago and when they were mature lawyers her husband was the lawyer running the investigation. She was ethically bound not to tell me what was going on but we were both amused and sad for CALPERS that a very, very egotistical lawyer and self-proclaimed ‘big expert’ (who had not treated either of us very well 10 years earlier) was the lawyer who rolled over and played dead when told to do so by CALPERS investment managers.

      Nobody got sued as a result of the young litigation hot-shot’s investigation. That was no surprise to me because each step of the way the lawyers and business entities made sure CALPERS investment entity was represented by a hot-shot lawyer from a big law firm in San Francisco so CALPERS couldn’t say they were suckered.

      In addition in going into and then out of the LandSource deal by walking away at the start of the bankruptcy the CALPERS investment entity was advised by a Weyerhaeuser subsidiary which could be considered an expert land developer and homebuilder because they own Pardee, and advised by a guy named Victor MacFarlane, who thought he had a good relationship with the West Coast management of Lennar. So if they were hosed as a result of unfortunate circumstances, it was not Lennar’s fault.

      The foreclosing mortgage lender, Barclays Bank, iced the cake on Lennar’s behalf in the LandSource/Newhall Land Chapter 11 Plan and order approving it signed by the Bankruptcy Court judge by Barclays Bank including the magic mumbo-jumbo release language under which no one could file any sort of lawsuit against Newhall Land, LandSource, Barclays Bank or Lennar or any of their executives or Directors or lawyers for any wrong doing. That was totally on the legal up-and-up and entirely kosher under the modern customs of bankruptcy law practice in Chapter 11 cases.

  8. Sally Mehr Sally Mehr says:

    I hope they don’t get it…

  9. Where exactly are they trying to build all this? I know they say west, but to me west is Magic Mountain. Is that where they plan all this and isn’t that technically considered L.A. County not scv?

  10. Joey De Anda Joey De Anda says:

    I love the drive to Ventura Beach through the 126 fwy & they are going to ruin the open space beauty & at the same time congest our beautiful SCV! Boooo!

  11. Hardin Rich says:

    Indeed, as was stated prior “Most people moved here to get away from the sewer south..” but you had no foresight. No rational person would be so gullible as to believe that the area would stay as it was. From what you left, you will become. You wanted “your” city, now live in it.

  12. waterwatcher says:

    So they can’t get big pension funds to loan them money anymore, after the $billion dollars they got out of CalPers in 2008 (yes, that’s with a B – CalPers largest single loss ever and it hurt each and every worker with a pension. All those real estate losses is what caused the pension costs to go up. A great transfer of money from the public to developers.

    BUT NOW they want to get it directly from the public! Anyone who buys stock in a company like this is very foolish. All they have to do is look at the water situation and how long they have been trying to build Newhall Ranch to realize there must be some rel issues.

  13. I wish that project would go away. Water availability? More traffic! Ruin 126. No thanks.

  14. Seriously ? no !! Enough building unless they plan to cut through the hills to the valley. Traffic on I5 already a nightmare, can’t imagine another estimated 40-60K cars coming in and out. Like Hotel SCV.. you can check in but you can never leave .. Crazy !!

  15. Allan Cameron says:

    Despite the above average rain fall in Santa Clarita Valley recently, the underground water aquifers in all the areas that went “bone dry” during the last four years of drought are still 85 percent below what would be “normal” for this time of year. While the drought may be over in most of the State, it is absolutely not over in the Santa Clarita Valley. The source for the “numbers” I have mentioned is the Newhall County Water District.

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