Why to engage early
The structuring decisions made in the first weeks of an HTC transaction determine how the closing behaves months later. Battle Hill is most useful when it is in the transaction early enough to shape them.
Incentive-driven real estate transactions sit at the intersection of development, institutional finance, tax structure, and regulatory compliance. Each side carries its own terminology, incentives, and assumptions. Decisions made early in the structuring process set the terms for execution months later. Most problems that surface at closing were created long before.
Battle Hill works inside these transactions on the developer’s side. We translate institutional capital structures into practical business decisions, hold the sponsor’s economic interests through negotiation, and integrate HTC capital into the broader deal so the development team can stay focused on the development.
Battle Hill is led by John Murphy.
He has spent fifteen years working on historic tax credit transactions from multiple sides of the market. He started in HTC syndication at Foss & Company, moved to bridge and construction lending at Octagon Finance, and most recently advised sponsors as a principal at Lock 39 Capital.
That background shapes how Battle Hill works. Equity, debt, and advisory each see the same transaction differently. Knowing how each side underwrites, and where each side has room to move, is what lets the sponsor’s interests be represented credibly across the full stack.
He holds a JD from Seton Hall University School of Law and a BS in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from The College of New Jersey. He lives in the New York metropolitan area.
Most developers encounter these transactions a few times in a career. Their counterparties run hundreds. That asymmetry shapes how these deals get done, what gets explained, and which structural decisions get scrutinized.
That understanding comes from years inside these transactions from multiple seats. Syndication. Bridge lending. Independent advisory. Institutional capital markets. Each seat shows a different part of the transaction and a different version of where deals tend to break.
Battle Hill was built to fill the gap that creates. Developers in these transactions are surrounded by specialists. HTC equity investors. Syndicators. Lenders. Each works from their own seat with different commercial interests. What is missing on most deals is someone working across all of them on the developer’s behalf.
Take HTC equity. On paper, it is one of the cheaper forms of capital available to a developer. Compared to preferred equity or mezzanine debt, the pricing is attractive. The hidden cost shows up elsewhere. In time. In friction. In structural concessions made under pressure. In decisions made without market visibility.
HTC expertise is necessary somewhere in the room. It does not have to live with the developer.
We represent the sponsor’s perspective through every part of the process. We bring transparency to pricing, structure, and counterparty selection. We make the tradeoffs visible. We help principals make informed decisions quickly and stay focused on what they do best.
We work selectively. Engagements receive senior involvement from initial structuring through closing.
The early work matters most. Capital partner selection, structuring of the HTC component, and integration with the rest of the stack are decisions that determine downstream execution quality. We do that work carefully because the consequences land later.
Developers take risk. That is the business. Our role is to make sure the risks taken are intentional, understood, and consistent with how the deal needs to behave once the work begins.