Griffin Capital Corporation announced that Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT, Inc. ("GCEAR") had entered into a merger agreement with Signature Office REIT, under which Signature will merge with GCEAR in a stock-for-stock deal that creates an approximately $3 billion REIT with a combined 15.2 million square feet of office and industrial assets. The merger was unanimously approved by each REIT's respective Board of Directors, but is conditioned on formal approval by Signature shareholders, receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to be completed during the first half of 2015.
Commenting on the merger, Kevin Shields, Griffin Capital's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer stated, "As we look forward to the next phase of our lifecycle, we believe the additional scale, diversity and operating efficiencies that our combined portfolios will garner is paramount in driving additional stockholder value in the future. Earlier this year we sold all of the remaining capital stock in our follow-on offering, and once we fully invest this equity, we expect our total capitalization to exceed $3 billion upon stabilization."
Michael Escalante, Griffin Capital's Chief Investment Officer added, "We look forward to having Signature shareholders standing shoulder-to-shoulder with GCEAR and its management team, which has invested over $26 million of its own capital in GCEAR. We are excited about this opportunity and, in our opinion, a ‘win-win' scenario was engendered by the understanding that together we can accomplish more than we can apart."
Eastdil Secured represented Signature in the deal, and Houlihan Lokey acted as financial advisors to Signature. Robert A. Stanger & Co. provided GCEAR's board of directors with a fairness opinion for the transaction, according to a CoStar report.
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