Kondaur to Snap up 28,000 Distressed Assets by Year’s End

Scratch and dent owner/servicer Kondaur Capital plans to jump its portfolio of distressed assets from 2,000 loans to nearly 30,000 by the end of the year, according to its CEO, John Daurio. According to Daurio, who plans to simultaneously increase his workforce from 300 to 1,000 to cope with the increased workload, Kondaur’s business approach is unlikely to change. “We like to develop a level of affinity with the borrowers, so we are incredibly high touch. We will spend the time necessary to correctly asses the situation on a property-by-property basis,” he says. “Our due diligence includes looking over the credits files, the servicing notes, everything so that we get an intimate knowledge of the asset.” The now shuttered hedge fund, Pequot Capital Management, provided the $1bn in capital necessary for the acquisitions. Daurio will wait to see how the expansion develops before committing to buy any more distressed assets. He adds that the business model of Kondaur is also unique in that it places a unique bid on every property, as opposed to bidding on entire pools of loans, in what he refers to as “true loan level pricing.” This allows the seller to cherry pick from Kondaur’s single bids, something proving very popular in the industry, Daurio said. Write to Jacob Gaffney.