Sunnyside in N.Y. receives unsolicited offer from big investor

Sunnyside Bancorp in Irvington, N.Y, which agreed in March to sell itself to DLP Real Estate Capital, has received an unsolicited buyout offer from one of its investors.

Rhodium BA Holdings, which owns about 9.8% of Sunnyside’s stock through its OppCapital Associates subsidiary, said in a press release Tuesday that it has offered to buy the $97 million-asset company for about $14.6 million.

Rhodium, an entity created solely to pursue the purchase of Sunnyside, said its offer represents a 19% premium to the amount DLP Real Estate Capital is set to pay. Rhodium said it has tried unsuccessfully for the past year to engage Sunnyside’s board to discuss a deal.

“We were … surprised by your announcement that you signed a definitive merger agreement with DLP,” Mark Silber, a managing member at Rhodium, wrote in an April 20 letter to Sunnyside’s board that the investor included with the release.

“This board’s continued refusal to engage in any discussion whatsoever with Rhodium comes at the clear expense of Sunnyside’s shareholders and their ability to receive a substantial and certain all-cash premium for their shares,” Silber added.

Rhodium said it is prepared to take its offer directly to Sunnyside’s shareholders.

DLB Real Estate Capital, through DLP Bancshares, announced a deal to buy Sunnyside on March 16.

Fred Reinhardt, a consultant at DLP Real Estate Capital, would succeed Timothy Sullivan as Sunnyside’s president and CEO, provided regulators approve the deal. Reinhardt was chairman and CEO of Brickell Bank from 2012 to 2019.

Sunnyside is expected to start offering commercial real estate financing, along with warehouse loans, on a national basis, should the DLP deal close.

DLP Real Estate Capital offers equity and debt funds to high-net-worth investors, makes loans to investors in single-family and multifamily projects as well as to homebuilders, and also provides realty and property management services.

The private company, with dual headquarters in Bethlehem, Pa., and St. Augustine, Fla., said in March that it had around $100 million in annual revenue, roughly $1.3 billion of assets under management and more than 700 loans in its portfolio. The company has closed over 16,000 real estate transactions totaling more than $4 billion.