Brookfield Property Partners L.P. has made a nonbinding proposal to acquire all the outstanding shares of common stock of GGP Inc., the real estate investment trust whose projects include the forthcoming SoNo Collection megamall in Norwalk.
Under the proposal, Brookfield Property Partners, based in Bermuda, would pay $23 a share for the remaining 66 percent of GGP that it does not already own. GGP investors could choose either cash or 0.9656 of a limited-partnership unit of Brookfield Property for each share, subject to proration that keeps the consideration of cash and units from each exceeding $7.4 billion.
The deal has been presented to the GPP board for consideratio. The Chicago company had no immediate comment.
If approved, the transaction would create one of the largest listed property companies in the world, with an ownership interest in almost $100 billion of real estate assets globally and annual net operating income of approximately $5 billion.
“Brookfield”™s access to large-scale capital and deep operating expertise across multiple real estate sectors combined with GGP”™s high-quality retail asset base will allow us to maximize the value of these irreplaceable assets,” Brookfield Property Partners CEO Brian Kingston said.
The combined company would be approximately 30 percent-owned by existing GGP shareholders.
In addition to the 125 high-end retail properties it already owns ”“ including the Staten Island Mall and the Woodbridge Center in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey ”“ GGP is developing the 717,000-square-foot SoNo Collection megamall, a $525 million project that would employ about 2,500 full-time workers. It is expected to open in October 2019.
