Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s estate agreed on Monday to sell apartment-building owner Archstone Enterprise LP to Equity Residential, a company run by the investor Samuel Zell, and AvalonBay Communities for about $6.5 billion in cash and stock. According to a New York Times article, the sale will dispose of the Lehman estate's single biggest asset as it continues efforts to wind itself down and pay off the firm's legions of creditors; it will also end the estate's plans to take Archstone public, which had been expected to raise $3.45 billion in an offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
Englewood, CO-based Archstone operates apartment communities across the country with a stake in 181 developments covering 57,948 apartment units, as of Sept. 30. Equity Residential will acquire about 60% of Archstone's assets and liabilities while AvalonBay will acquire about 40%. In return, the Lehman estate will become the single biggest shareholder in each company, holding a 9.8% stake in Equity Residential and a 13.2% stake in AvalonBay.
"Archstone is a highly sophisticated and very well thought-of manager of apartment assets," said Craig Leupold, the president of Green Street Advisors, a research firm. "If it's not the highest-quality portfolio around, it's certainly up there."
"The sale of Archstone to Equity Residential and Avalon Bay is a very positive outcome for our creditors," Owen Thomas, the chairman of Lehman's board of directors, said in a statement.
For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.
No comments:
Post a Comment