RAIT Investment Trust is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that conducts its operations through RAIT Partnership, L.P., a limited partnership that owns substantially all of the Company's assets. The Company's wholly owned subsidiaries, RAIT General, Inc. and RAIT Limited, Inc., are the sole general partner and sole limited partners, respectively, of RAIT Partnership. The Company has three principal business activities. The Company makes real estate loans directly to borrowers, acquires real estate loans from others and acquires real properties or interests in real properties. The Company makes real estate loans directly to borrowers whose financing needs do not conform to the criteria of institutional lenders and lenders that securitize loans. As of December 31, 2001, 29 of the Company's 36 loans, constituting 58.8% of its loans by book value, were junior lien loans. The Company also provides short-term bridge financing.