Yogi Singh, Stewart Garland and Pushkal Basavaraj continue to show their interest in campsites and nuts.
The trio added two more to their business this summer through their firms National Land Lease Capital and AgCold.
Last month, they bought the Prospect Mountain Camping Resort in the foothills of western Massachusetts for about $8 million.
In Suffolk, closer to home, they’ve won a big new client for their cold storage business.
Yogi Singh
The Prospect Mountain deal is the tenth campground and RV park the group has purchased in recent years and their northernmost acquisition to date.
“It provides a good beachhead in that area,” Singh said.
Located in Granville, Massachusetts, near the Berkshire Mountains, Prospect Mountain Campground is a 140-acre site with 240 campgrounds, ponds, pools and other amenities.
Singh said the campground has been in business since 1947 and has been family owned.
“This is a family that has owned the property for over 10 years and finds itself in the age-old position of figuring out the next step and determining whether inheritance is part of the equation or whether it makes sense to sell,” Singh said of the seller.
This is NLLC’s first acquisition of campgrounds in 2022, marking the company’s slightly slower pace than in recent years. Part of the reason, Singh said, is the economy and rising interest rates.
“We’ve taken a slightly less aggressive approach to acquisitions this year as we try to get a thoughtful understanding of where the market is going, even though it’s difficult. Of course, the cost of capital has gone up as well.”
NLLC paid approximately $8 million for Prospect Mountain Camping Resort.
Singh said loans that used to be between 3% and 4% are now over 5%. Its loan for the Prospect Mountain deal was brokered by Berkadia through Berkshire Bank.
“Not only are the real cost of capital rising, but the terms of banks are becoming more conservative,” Singh said.
NLLC’s other RV parks and campgrounds are located at four in Texas, Georgia, Indiana and Virginia, including River’s Rest Marina and Resort, which opened in April in Charles City, east of Richmond. All of its camping properties are managed by Blue Water Development.
In addition to interest rates, Singh said gas prices have been a question mark for the industry lately.
“The environment today is definitely different than it was 12 months ago,” he said. “I think outdoor recreation and outdoor hospitality has had a boom during the COVID epidemic, but I think as we go through different economic pressures, people are finding it’s still the cheapest way to get a vacation.”
Michael White of 1850 Investments stands next to a 2,200-pound bag of nuts.
almond nuts
Meanwhile, in Suffolk, Singh said the group continued to grow the AgCold business it acquired in December.
Almonds are AgCold’s new business.
While the business deals mostly with refrigerated storage of peanuts in various forms, Singh said its latest deal involves storing almonds for an unnamed large food production company.
Almonds are shipped through East Coast ports in 2,000-pound containers and require refrigeration on their way to further processing.
“Almonds are generally considered a very California-centric agricultural product,” he said. “Eighty-five percent of the world’s almond production is in California. What we have on the East Coast is the end user. As it travels through ports in Virginia, Savannah and Charleston, it has to be stored in cold storage facilities.”
Singh sees plenty of room for growth in both nuts and almonds, and plans to build a fourth warehouse on its Suffolk property.
“This will be a modern architectural prototype that we think is needed for the national food cold chain,” Singh said, adding that the new facility will be 150,000 square feet or larger. “And we think the market for modern refrigerated shelving warehouse space is still insufficient.”
While Singh wouldn’t comment on specific financial numbers, he said the company’s revenue has doubled in the past 12 months thanks to an increase in refrigeration operations and the maturity of RV parks.
The companies now operate under a new umbrella group, 1850 Investments, which manages nearly $200 million in assets, he said.
