Accelerate Investment Partners has entered the ranks of the billboard lease aggregators.  Billboard Insider talked with Scott Furcolow the firm’s SVP, Billboards.  Prior to joining Accelerate Furcolow was a regional manager for Fairway Outdoor.

Tell us about Accelerate.

Accelerate Investment Partners acquires, owns and manages investments in real property interests under energy and infrastructure locations across the country. Through our infrastructure strategy and long-term dedicated capital, we focus on purchasing ground leases and land under billboard, wireless and sustainable infrastructure assets, including wind, solar, storage and EV charging projects. Our team has decades of experience, has been acquiring real property interests since 2016 and we have acquired over 1,200 assets to date!

What is the company’s objective with respect to out of home?

We seek to be a value-added partner to outdoor operators through long-term relationships. How we achieve that is by delivering predictability of your lease expense through a variety of methods, including lease consolidation, problematic lease buyouts, term extensions and sale-leaseback opportunities. We are incredibly transparent with OOH operators. We realize this is key to establishing trust and ensuring we can deliver exceptional results for our operators. Accelerate also works with property owners to maximize the value of their real estate by unlocking additional capital and monetizing qualified existing ground leases.

What kinds of transactions are you seeking?

In addition to ground lease buyouts, we work with operators to fund the conversion or construction of new digital assets in their markets. Operators use Accelerate’s capital to fund their digital deployment in exchange for a ground lease/easement. This allows operators to access capital without impacting their borrowing power or adding leverage to their company – our capital is not debt. That said, nothing prohibits an operator from seeking traditional loans to support its business. We provide long-term, predictable operating costs in exchange for the capital needed for the project. Utilizing this method, operators can take a multiyear digital strategy and achieve their goals in less time because they will be driving revenue and increasing the profitability and value of their plant.

Most out of home companies want to own an easement themselves. What are the benefits of having Accelerate own an easement?

Great question. First and foremost, it’s essential to understand that Accelerate’s objectives run perfectly parallel to those of out of home operators. Every time we invest in out of home leases, we seek to extend the current lease to the extent of the operator’s comfort. We look to extend each lease a minimum of 30 years, but we’re happy to go longer if the operator wishes. Our goal is to provide the operator with comfort in a stable lease that doesn’t renew every five years, with unknown increases or demands. Another substantial benefit to an operator is the ability to deploy their capital elsewhere for needed items. In many plants, the last few years delayed needed maintenance or projects that are now back on the agenda to complete. We want to serve as a trusted partner in helping identify additional or alternative capital options for operators. Our investment strategy is to work with property owners and operators in win-win scenarios and our actions always stand to support this, because we seek long-term relationships and only those that are mutually beneficial. If we can get operators’ lease agreements, operating expenses and location security to the same place as buying easements themselves, why not save your capital for other uses and leverage Accelerate’s capital? In doing this, we believe our goals align quite well with those of the industry. You can learn more about us at www.we-are-accelerate.com.

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