Safehold

Safehold Inc. is a New York-based real estate investment trust that originates and holds modern ground leases, a structure that separates ownership of the land beneath a commercial building from ownership of the building itself. The company provides long-term, low-cost capital to owners, operators and developers for acquisitions, recapitalizations and development, allowing them to remove the land component from their upfront equity requirement and replace a portion of their capital structure with a 99-year lease with predictable ground rent payments and no fair-market-value resets. The structure is designed to be lender-friendly and has been accepted by banks, CMBS lenders, debt funds, life companies and agencies.

Safehold targets ground lease transactions of roughly $15 million to $500 million, with cap rates of 4.25%-5.0%, ground lease-to-property value of 30%-45%, and rent coverage of 3.0x-4.5x, across the top 30 U.S. markets. Property types include multifamily, affordable housing, office, hotel, retail, industrial, life science, student and senior housing, and mixed use. The company also operates CARET, a vehicle that splits its ground lease portfolio into units representing the rent stream and original cost basis (GL Units) and units representing capital appreciation above the original cost basis (CARET Units), which it intends to monetize as a separate asset class.

The company is led by Chairman and CEO Jay Sugarman, with Michael Trachtenberg as President, Brett Asnas as CFO, and Steve Wylder as Head of Investments. It is taxed as a REIT and seeks to deliver income and long-term capital appreciation to shareholders.

Founding story

Safehold was created by iStar after identifying what it described as a market inefficiency in which building owners targeting roughly 15% returns were deploying expensive equity against the low-return land component of their assets; the modern ground lease was designed to separate and more efficiently capitalize that land.

Business model

Safehold acquires and originates ground leases under buildings owned by third parties, earning contractual long-term ground rent from those leases and retaining residual interests in the land and improvements. It finances the portfolio with equity and debt capital raised in the public markets, including unsecured term loans, and pays a common stock dividend as a REIT. It has additionally raised third-party capital into CARET, the vehicle holding capital-appreciation economics on its ground lease portfolio.

Recurring ground rent payments under long-term (up to 99-year) ground leases, plus capital appreciation participation through the CARET structure; reported revenue of $270.3 million in FY2022 versus $187.0 million in FY2021.

Traction

The portfolio grew from $0.3 billion at IPO to $6.2 billion at Q4 2022 — described as 18x growth since IPO — and stood at $7.0 billion gross book value (excluding $85 million of forward commitments) as of the company's site. In 2022 Safehold closed 26 new ground leases at a $1.4 billion aggregate cost basis, held more than 130 ground leases in over 30 top MSAs, and raised $934 million of equity and debt capital. Trailing twelve-month revenue was approximately $436.4 million with net income available to common of $116.2 million, and market capitalization was about $1.09 billion as of August 2026.

Latest developments

For fourth-quarter and full-year 2025, Safehold reported modest increases in sales, revenue, net income and earnings per share, received an A- credit rating upgrade, and completed a $400 million unsecured term loan refinancing, using proceeds in part to repay $227 million of secured debt maturing in 2027. It also announced a new share repurchase authorization and expanded its affordable housing ground lease platform into additional states. The company reported second-quarter 2026 results with revenue of $114.65 million and earnings of $30.16 million.