Group targetting $400m in acquisitions, investments.

The Prescott Group, LLC, a real estate merchant banking firm dedicated to the private client, announced that two trusts for the family of Gordon P. Getty have invested in the firm at the corporate level with the right to participate in Prescott-sponsored real estate vehicles that will target more than $400 million of acquisitions, investments, and partnerships in 2005. "Bringing institutional quality real estate investments to the rapidly growing nigh-net-worth marketplace is a tremendous opportunity for our firm," said Theodore R. Gamble, Jr., managing director and founder of Prescott. "Now with our new partnership with the Getty trusts, we will offer affluent individual investors--those with $20 million or more of investible assets--unique opportunities to acquire property assets with attractive yield characteristics--investments that have typically been available only to major institutional investors and sizeable private investment entities.

"Prescott offers private clients and their advisors a comprehensive approach to real estate investment.

"Our strategy is to work with wealth managers to help meet the real estate investment needs of their client base, effectively serving as an outsourced family office for real estate," Gamble said.

"Prescott also creates fully transparent portfolios of property assets that allow investors to gain diversity through the real estate asset class. These portfolios provide superior risk-adjusted returns and are offered at modest minimum investment levels, providing both wealth managers and their clients a superior product for diversification."

Gamble will lead the firm's expansion with Prescott's two other managing directors, Daniel J. Steinberg and Susan L. Stupin.

Through its newly created Prescott Capital Management unit, the firm will sponsor a series of U.S. commercial property investment partnerships and fund vehicles targeted toward private wealth managers serving high-net-worth investors, including private banks, brokerages, trust companies, family offices, financial advisors, and other financial service companies. It also originates and manages U.S. and international property markets separate account investment programs for private and institutional clients.

"The Getty trusts' commitment to Prescott and its sponsored investments underscores the trusts' emphasis on real estate as an important asset class in a diversified investment portfolio," said Gordon P. Getty.

"We believe Prescott has an innovative business model and a strong, experienced team that will help major individual investors reap the benefits of direct real estate investment via a product that we believe can have significant market penetration."

Prescott Capital Advisors coordinates all of Prescott's real estate investment banking activities, which include raising debt and equity capital in the public and private markets for properties, portfolios, and U.S. and international operating entities.

The group serves a range of investors, institutions, corporations, investment managers, family groups, and property developers.