Walton Global: A history and review

Walton Global: A history and review

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Introduction

If you’re interested in investing in real estate in North America, then you might have heard of the real estate management company Walton Global, which has more than 91,000 acres of land under ownership and management in the United States and Canada.

In this article, we will highlight the company’s assets, recent performance, history, and evaluate whether it is a good investment in the year 2023.

What is Walton Global?

Founded in 1979, Walton Global is a real estate investment company that has been around for over four decades.

Walton presently owns and manages more over 91,000 acres of land across North America, including more than 79,000 acres in the southern United States, which is home to many of the fastest growing regions and metropolitan areas.

These assets include investments in 28 identified growth markets in North America, with the majority located in the Sun Belt region of the United States.

Walton Global’s primary business is the emphasis on creating value on pre-developed that is in an expected growth area.

Choosing the ideal piece of land for acquisition, syndicating it through the investment structures best suited for our many worldwide sales channels, managing the land during its hold time, and finally selling the land for a predicted overall profit are all parts of Walton’s investment strategy.

The company currently oversees real estate assets worth US$3.6 billion on behalf of investors from over 83 different nations.

They own commercial, industrial, and residential properties, among which include developments like shopping centers, logistics facilities, office buildings and luxury residential condominiums.

Walton Global’s portfolio of real estate is spread across 28 major North American markets, comprised of more than 150 master-planned communities with multiple uses.

The company has offices in six countries: United States, Canada, China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.

History

Founded in Calgary, Alberta in Canada by the Doherty Family under the name of Quance Enterprises in 1979, Walton Global’s first pre-development land project is a 14-acre parcel in Alberta. This was syndicated to individual investors in 1986.

In 1992, the company established Asia operations by opening its first office in Hong Kong, eventually expanding to Singapore four years later in 1996.

In 1998, Walton Global began its pre-development land exit business with Panorama Estates in Calgary, in what it calls an “extremely successful project with strong returns to investors.

By the turn of the millennium in 2003, Walton Global had its first development project, Shepard Land Industrial, a 1,494-acre industrial development in southeast Calgary in Canada.

In 2007, one year before the global financial crisis, the company stepped into the United States, establishing offices with a strategy focused on acquiring and syndicating land assets in the path of growth in major U.S. markets.

So far, Walton Global has invested a significant amount of money on buying land in Canada. In order to minimize the impact of the economic slump in the United States, the company moved its attention away from Canada in 2007 and has since acquired more than 81,000 acres of land.

From there until 2013, Walton Global made a CAD 450 million joint venture with an insurance company to develop three communities in Calgary and Edmonton, Canada. Meanwhile, it announced in 2012 that it has distributed USD 1 billion to its investors.

The real estate firm went on to partner with more companies to acquire and develop land across North America, building up its portfolio. It also established Chinese and Middle Eastern offices in 2018 and 2019. Taiwan offices followed not long afterwards in 2020.

In 2021, Walton Global announced that it has distributed USD 2 billion to its investors as a result of its business strategy.

The company’s latest announcement was of the selling of 80 acres in Maryland’s Prince George’s County to D.R. Horton, to develop the Spring Hills master-planned development.

What should I know about investing in Walton Global?

Walton Global is a real estate investment firm that focuses on purchasing undervalued properties and selling them for a profit in the future.

They like to buy properties that they deem are undervalued but have the potential for growth, and are in safe and secure, fairly populous areas.

According to the company’s forecasts, consistent long-term growth in the U.S. economy will be fueled by rises in the population, formation of new households, and employment.

To meet the housing needs of a growing population, this will lead to a considerable increase in demand for land that is ready for construction and situated in the growth corridors of major U.S. areas. This is the core that Walton Global bases its business on.

The company leverages its capabilities to selectively buy pre-development land parcels relevant to this investment profile, including an extensive land research process, a debt-free technique of acquiring pre-development land assets, and its decades of experience.

The investment strategy employed by Walton is one that believes in buying assets that have a potential for growth, and then resell these assets at higher prices later on down the line, in essence borrowing against future earnings.

As an investor, this strategy can allow you to make money while waiting out any economic downturns or recessions by holding onto their investments until things start looking up again before selling off their holdings when things improve again.

The exit and monetization of real estate assets to significant U.S. national and regional homebuilders and developers are also essential components of Walton’s investment strategy, in addition to the identification and acquisition of pre-development land assets.

In order to monetize pre-development land holdings across North America, Walton’s asset management methodology focuses on establishing agreements with best-in-class homebuilders and developers.

By taking a long-term approach to land planning and entitlements, Walton Global works with homebuilders and developers to create sustainable communities that are resilient and long-lasting, with a goal of creating hometowns for present and future generations.

Walton Global’s portfolio of investments are through three property segments: commercial properties, industrial and logistics properties, and residential developments.

Retail or commercial properties include shopping centers such as malls, outlet stores and supercenters; industrial and logistics properties include distribution centers and warehouses, while residential projects include townships, master-planned communities, and condominiums.

Walton additionally has claimed that it follows an environmental, social and governance (ESG) program that is vital to its business practice and forms a primary obligation to the company, its business partners, investors, and employees.

The business has committed to pursuing and creating a comprehensive strategy that tackles Walton’s environmental and societal implications. The business acknowledges the need to adopt sustainability as a company-wide endeavor.

To this, Walton Global said, “Throughout our history, Walton has considered how communities are built, but more importantly, the people who live in them. This year, we are formalizing a program based on ESG principles in order to continue on a sustainable path toward an equitable future.”

“As a part of the development process, we are reviewing our past efforts as well as our current operational policies and procedures to create a program that will factor in goals, action, accountability and a thorough reporting process. The foundation of our program is a value-based approach that is focused on a balance between environmental, social, and economic prosperity.”

Walton pledges to announce more details about these developments in the coming months.

Should you invest in Walton Global?

Walton Global undoubtedly is a big player in the real estate industry across North America, but as a private company it is hard to gauge how it is performing financially, especially with how it provides value to investors.

As of the first half of 2022, Walton Global announced that it has made distributions to investors totaling more than US $137 Million, on the back of strong land sales in the company’s various assets across North America.

The total distribution of US $137 million comes from assets held in Walton’s investment structures in both the US and Canada.

Kate Kaminski, chief operating officer at Walton Global, said of the distribution, “We have been managing our land sales pipeline diligently across all of our assets in both the U.S. and Canada. This is the first large wave of investor distributions in 2022, but we have many other significant projects that are expected to close throughout the year.”

“Nothing is more gratifying to Walton than to make distributions to our investors and we are focused on making that happen. Some land assets take longer than others due to various circumstances, but we are working on creating robust exit activity this year and we are looking forward to sharing more with our investors in the months ahead.”

As an investor, you can view this as a good sign of a company that is performing well. Looking at Walton Global’s latest public announcements, it has been making fairly regular updates to its portfolio of investments.

Among the company’s latest announcements is the commencement of the first phase of its 822-acre plan in Prince George’s County, Maryland to D.R. Horton, the United States’ largest home builder by volume, for a master plan community known as Spring Hills.

This deal marks the start of the Dobson Ridge Master Plan’s residential development phase. The parcels will be developed by Forestar, which will developing the lots for D.R. Horton.

A range of residential unit types, as well as a mix of commercial and employment purposes, are planned for the overall Master Plan. There will be a variety of residential units available, including single-family detached homes, single-family attached homes, and multifamily units.

Various retail, business office, and civic uses are anticipated to be among the non-residential uses.

What’s the catch?

The catch is that Walton Global’s investment strategy hinges on real estate speculation, as it buys up undervalued land with the expectation of it growing in value in the future.

The company has been involved in many projects over the years, many of which are very successful.

However, there are also news reports of foreign investors injecting billions of dollars into Walton’s land assets, without any sign of these assets being developed.

According to the report, 92,000 investors and $3.8 billion in investments to 106,000 acres of land assets have resulted in projects that were still not built.

On the basis of a 2017 appraisal, several investors claim their shares were only worth 20% of what they invested. Over 90 Canadian investors have even retained a U.S.-based private investigation company to follow the money from Walton’s land syndication.

For its part, Walton claims to have a fresh plan for selling the land owned by its investors and to have found prospective buyers for over half of its assets.

According to a Walton attorney, one recent initiative brought in almost twice as much money as its initial investors invested.

Ryan Kretschmer, general counsel for a Walton affiliate called Walton Global Holdings Ltd., commented that Walton has “a lot of key projects and possibilities on the horizon and we are thrilled about what the coming years hold in store for Walton and our investors.”

Additionally, according to Kretschmer, the real estate recession’s severity was “unforeseen,” and the U.S. recovery has gone far more slowly than anticipated.

This is the danger of real estate speculation. Most of the more than 300 Walton property projects, which span from Alberta to Washington, are behind schedule, often by years, when investors anticipated a return.

Should you be interested in investing in Walton Global, keep in mind their investment strategy and the perils that may come with it.

Bottom line

Investing in real estate can be a very lucrative endeavor. By investing in real estate, you can build wealth over time and diversify your portfolio with assets that have been proven to grow over time.

Real estate also provides a steady income stream that is immune from fluctuations caused by inflation and other economic factors. Real estate investment is an excellent way to hedge against inflation by acquiring properties at lower prices when prices are high.

Walton Global could be a good investment for people who want to invest in real estate. Their management team has many years of experience and they own many properties around the world. The company is also well-known, but the company is not without risk.

It is best you discuss with a trusted financial planner or advisor about the value of such investments.

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