2006 will forever be remembered as the year of the deal. With five weeks left in the year, worldwide mergers and acquisitions already reached a record $3.1 trillion, according to Bloomberg News.
The real estate sector has contributed more than its share thanks to deal-happy real estate investment trusts who have driven prices to new records. Take, for example, private equity firm Blackstone Group LP's recent proposed purchase of REIT Equity Office Properties Trust for $36 billion. The deal would be the largest ever leveraged buyout potentially surpassing the $33 billion buyout of hospital operator HCA, which only last week took the title. The two deals add to the already gaudy $617 billion in leverage buyouts, nearly tripling last year's mark at $222 million.
When it comes to the purchase of actual real estate, however, nothing tops the sale of the largest residential apartment complex in Manhattan known as Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village by MetLife to Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty for $5.4 billion in October. The property consists of 11,232 units on 80 acres. Other high-profile purchases of properties include: a bid for the sale of the State Street Financial Center in Boston for $880 million and the sale of London City Airport for $1.4 billion.
With five weeks left, and plenty of capital floating around, who knows how long the Equity Office and Stuyvesant Town deals will remain record holders. — Gerald Magpily
Read Bloomberg article via The New York Post
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