At our Value Conference, our colleagues on the Real Estate team revisited one of Marty Whitman's quotes from October 1996: "Given Third Avenue's investment criteria, it is more accurate to view the situation as the industry selecting the Fund, rather than Third Avenue choosing the industries in which to invest!' We think this quote superbly describes the opportunity the Value Fund saw in establishing a position in Lennar Corporation common in the quarter, as the shares somewhat inexplicably sold off from nearly $50 at their recent peak and allowed us to establish a position at just over $41 per share.
We have followed Lennar (LEN, Financial) for years as the Real Estate team reviewed the position at our weekly research meetings, and think the investment case has only improved on a fundamental level despite the widening valuation discount in the shares. Lennar meets every tenant of our investment philosophy.
The balance sheet is strong and improving. Net debt to total capital has fallen 5.3% since year-end 2011 to 45.8% as of 3Q16, and net debt to total assets is not challenging at 37%. Much of this improvement is the result of management's soft pivot land strategy, which is reducing the duration of its owned land bank and converting its undervalued balance sheet assets into cash. This balance sheet improvement should continue as Lennar's $400 million redeemable convertible debt matures in November 2016, which should further reduce balance sheet leverage by 200 basis points.
From a compounding point of view, Lennar continues to build value through developing its land bank into saleable housing units, and by monetizing further transaction values through its mortgage origination and title insurance offerings to its home buyers. Notably, we are pleased and supportive of Lennar's offer to acquire WCIC Communities (NYSE:WCIC), a top holding of the Third Avenue Small-Cap Value Fund, as Miami-based Lennar knows WCIC's 100% based Florida assets intimately. Lennar not only sees compelling opportunities to monetize WCIC's over 14,000 homesites, but also synergy opportunities from management and supplier overlap. Further, in our opinion, Lennar negotiated an extremely good price for WCIC, which when considering the value of WCIC's brokerage operation and the hidden value of WCIC's owned coastal tower pads, will likely bring tremendous value as Lennar has a strong balance sheet to move construction of these assets forward.
Lennar's resource conversion outlook is compelling, with management likely to monetize its non-homebuilding investments in FivePoint and Rialto over the next 12-18 months through sales or spin-outs, and then over time, potentially further monetize its Multi-Family and even its Financial Services divisions through sales or partnerships. The value creation of Rialto, its 3rd party asset-light asset management unit with over $7.3 billion in AUM, and of FivePoint, its development and management company with over 40,000 homesites and 20 million square feet of commercial real estate assets in highly coveted California markets are, in our opinion, completely overlooked by the markets from a net asset value perspective, as their income statement impact today belies their true value to Lennar despite being worth more than 25% of the underlying value.
Perhaps Lennar's most exciting aspect is the strength of the investment case and current undervaluation taken without the likely strong tailwind of an improving housing cycle. At our Value Conference we talked about taking advantage of optically poor headlines, and Lennar is another real-time example. We think some of the weakness in Lennar shares in October was due to a weak single family home starts number for September, down 9.5%. The noise of monthly home start numbers do not impact the long-term value we see in Lerman While Lennar's sales and earnings are likely to strengthen as the single family construction cycle continues to recover from an extended cyclical low looking back to 2007, we see this as icing on the cake of our strong investment case. At our cost of just over $41 per share, we see over 25% upside to our estimate of fair trading value of $53, and longer term potential for shares to trade to over $66 per share if the single family cycle gains steam.
From Third Avenue Management (Trades, Portfolio)'s Value Fund fourth quarter commentary.
