Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Qatar and Brookfield Buying Canary Wharf

Brookfield Property Partners announced this week that its has entered into a 50/50 joint venture with Qatar Investment Authority to acquire the outstanding ordinary shares of Songbird Estates, which owns approximately 69% of Canary Wharf Group. If the offer is approved by Songbird Estates shareholders, the JV will make an offer to acquire the 31% of the outstanding shares of London's Canary Wharf not already owned by Songbird to take full ownership of the East London skyscraper cluster Canary Wharf, one of the world’s leading financial districts. Songbird Estates said it expects its biggest shareholders will accept an offer from Qatar Investment Authority and Brookfield Property Partners it had previously urged them to reject. Songbird said it still thought the $4 billion (3 billion pounds) price undervalued the estate, but with no rival bid forthcoming and holders of 86% of the shares backing the deal, it said its minority investors should accept.

Ric Clark, CEO of Brookfield Property Group, stated, "The placement of $1.8 billion of equity is a great endorsement of our global premier asset strategy. We are on the path to building the world's leading portfolio of best-in-class property assets. This capital will enable us to launch BPY to the next phase."

Qatar Investment Authority said in a statement, "We are making this strategic investment in Brookfield Property Partners as part of our investment plan to diversify globally in the real estate sector. This transaction takes our existing institutional relationship with Brookfield Asset Management to the next level, establishing a global platform for us to ‎continue our collaboration with Brookfield."

The main tower in Canary Wharf — a major office development begun in the 1980s by Toronto-based Olympia & York — is home to some of the world's biggest banks. Companies including Barclays Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have offices in the district, best known for the 50-story tower at One Canada Square, the U.K.’s tallest building until the Shard was completed in 2010.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

1 comment:

  1. The squarefoot flooring of the best floor for the basement as well as other rooms of your home in which humidity is high must be handled with attention. The goal is to ensure that the flooring will last for a long time and doesn’t become damaged because of humidity. In the event that your basement has been air-conditioned and properly treated it is possible to install flooring materials such as laminate and engineered wood. A lot of homeowners choose laminate flooring because it’s more affordable and attractive. If you have prepared the basement subfloor in a proper manner, laminate flooring is how to install laminate flooring on concrete basement floor an attractive alternative.

    ReplyDelete