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The company’s newest campground is in western Massachusetts. (Photos from 1850 investments)
Yogi Singh, Stuart Garland and Pushkal Basavaraj continue to show their passion for camp and nuts.
The trio made two additions to their companies, National Land Lease Capital and AgCold, this summer.
Last month, in the foothills of western Massachusetts, they bought Prospect Mountain Camp Resort for about $8 million.
Closer to home in Suffolk, they found a big new customer 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 the furthest north they’ve traveled to make a purchase to date.
“It offers a good beachhead in that geography,” Singh said.
Located in Granville, Massachusetts, near the Berkshires Mountain Range, Prospect Mountain Campground features 140 acres and 240 campsites, ponds, a swimming pool and other amenities.
Singh said the campground has been in business since 1947 and has always been family-owned.
“This was a family that had owned this property for over 10 years and found themselves at a point where they had to decide what was next and whether or not a successor was part of the sale,” Singh said of the sellers.
NLLC’s first campground purchase in 2022 marks a somewhat slower pace for the company in recent years. Singh says this is partly due to the economy and rising interest rates.
“We’ve taken a slightly less aggressive approach to acquisitions this year because we’ve deliberately tried to understand where the market is going, which is difficult. And of course the cost of capital has increased.”
NLLC paid about $8 million for Prospect Mountain Camp Resort.
Loans that can come with interest rates in the 3 percent to low 4 percent range are now more than 5 percent, Singh said. The loan for the Prospect Mountain deal was through Berkshire Bank and was brokered by Berkadia.
“Not only is the actual cost of capital increasing, but banks are getting more conservative in their terms,” Singh said.
NLLC’s other RV parks and campgrounds are located in Texas, Georgia, Indiana and four in Virginia, including Rivers Rest Marina and Resort, which opened in April in Charles City, east of Richmond. All of the campground properties are managed by Blue Water Development.
Besides interest rates, Singh said gas prices have been a question mark for the industry of late.
“It’s definitely a different environment today than it was 12 months ago,” he said. I think outdoor recreation and outdoor hospitality has taken a lot of time in the midst of covid, but I think what people are finding out about the various economic pressures we’re facing is that it’s still the cheapest way to vacation.
1850 investment Michael White next to a 2,200 pound sack of nuts.
For almonds
Meanwhile, in Suffolk, Singh continues to grow the AgCold operation the team acquired in December.
Nuts are a new business line for Agcold.
While the business mainly handles refrigerated peanuts in various forms, Singh said the latest deal involved almond storage for a large, unnamed food manufacturing company.
Nuts need to be cold when they go to the next processing step in 2,000 pound containers through East Coast ports.
“Almonds are traditionally thought of as a very California-centric agricultural product,” he said. “85 percent of the world’s almond production is in California. They are our end users on the east coast. When it comes through the ports of Virginia, Savannah, and Charleston, it must be refrigerated.
Singh sees plenty of room for nut and almond growth and plans to build a fourth warehouse on his Suffolk properties.
“It will be an example of modern buildings that we think are needed in the food cold chain across the country,” Singh added, adding that the new facility will be 150,000 square feet or more. “And we think the market is still underserved for modern refrigerated warehouse space.”
While Singh would not comment on specific financial figures, he said the company’s revenue has doubled in the past 12 months thanks to the cold storage business and the maturation of RV parks.
He said the companies are working under the newly created 1850 Investments, which has assets under management approaching $200 million.
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