Réseau Sélection top private retirement community developer

Réseau Sélection top private retirement community developer

Quebec company Réseau Sélection is now the largest private-sector player in retirement home community development, construction and management in Canada, with 10,000 units, including those under construction. The company is also ahead of schedule on its five-year plan.

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada

Torstar to sell site of shuttered printing plant

Publisher Torstar Corp said on Monday it had agreed to sell the land and buildings of the former printing plant of the Toronto Star for about $54.3-million. The publisher of Canada’s biggest-circulation daily newspaper did not disclose the buyers of the properties in Vaughan, Ontario.

Globe and Mail – Montreal Gazette – Financial Post

A more focused, disciplined Summit REIT

REITs come and go. What they rarely, if ever do, is come back around for a second iteration.  That’s pretty much what Summit Industrial Income REIT (SMU.UN-T) has pulled off. The Brampton, Ont.-based trust has the same management team and the same investment strategy that it had a decade ago with the original Summit REIT.

Property Biz Canada

OMERS buys piece of Australia’s busiest port

Chinese and Australian sovereign wealth funds, along with other investors, on Monday said they will take Australia’s busiest port private, Port of Melbourne, for a higher-than-expected A$9.7-billion ($7.3-billion), a sign that tough equity markets are fuelling appetite for infrastructure.

Globe and Mail – IPE Real Estate

Ikea said close to agreeing to real estate sale

Ikea, the world’s biggest furniture retailer, has selected asset manager Pradera as the lead bidder to buy 27 European retail parks surrounding its stores.. Pradera has offered about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to buy the assets which are being sold through broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc..

Bloomberg

Possible futures for the CP rail line in Calgary

It runs through the heart of Calgary like a steel spine. The city was built around it and exists in no small measure because of it. The track of the Canadian Pacific Railway is a fundamental part of Calgary’s urban geography. It bisects the core from the Beltline and runs through neighbourhoods. It has become so familiar that its significance in shaping the city can be easily overlooked.

CBC

Smaller market opportunities for apartment buildings

Smaller markets are an intriguing and profitable option for some apartment building investors as land and building prices in many major Canadian cities become too expensive. “There’s a certain amount of infrastructure that exists in those towns that we found worked for us, and we avoided going to the markets and having to use institutional money,” said Skyline’s chief executive officer Jason Castellan.

Property Biz Canada

Nordstrom challenges Hudson’s Bay with new flagship

At the north end of the Toronto Eaton Centre, a sprawling downtown mall, Nordstrom will open its first store in Canada’s largest city. At its south end, an iconic redbrick building houses the newly renovated flagship store of Canada’s department store giant, the Hudson’s Bay Co., and the first Canadian outlet of its subsidiary, Saks Fifth Avenue.

Financial Post

A victim of its success, Starbucks reinvents itself

With 24,000 locations across the world, Starbucks (SBUX-Q) has become an everyday stop for millions. But that ubiquity could be its problem. “Starbucks is now competing with chains like McDonald’s,” Business Insider proclaimed recently. “It has gotten, in a sense, too basic.” So what’s an overexposed company to do?

Winnipeg Free Press

Sears begins new wave of Kmart closures

Seritage Growth Properties, the REIT spinoff of some Sears Holdings’ Sears and Kmart stores, announced late Friday that Sears has exercised its right to terminate 17 store leases. Though the stores were not identified in the securities filing, analysts at RBC Capital Markets said that all 17 stores are Kmart locations.

CoStar Group

Elevator shaft vandalism spree hits downtown Halifax towers

A strange vandalism spree appears to be hitting downtown Halifax office towers, in which vandals throw objects down elevator shafts. Standing 22 storeys tall, the 1801 Hollis St. building is the third-tallest tower in Halifax. (Brett Ruskin / CBC News) Four elevator shafts were suddenly shut down last week in the 1801 Hollis St. tower, after tenants on multiple floors reported a loud banging coming from inside.

CBC

Hyperloop One could transform Canada’s economy: CEO

First envisioned by billionaire Elon Musk in 2013, Hyperloop One is now planning to move people at upwards of 1,000 kilometres an hour through the pressurized track system known as a ‘hyperloop’ by the year 2020. Once developed, riders could travel by hyperloop from Toronto to Montreal in 32 minutes.

Bloomberg

CPPIB buys Lloyd’s syndicate Ascot from AIG

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has teamed up with management to buy Lloyds specialty insurer Ascot from AIG International Group for US$1.1 billion, cementing its strategy of securing a steady flow of global issuance premiums. Ascot is based in London, with global business lines that include property, marine, cargo, and fine art insurance.

Financial Post

Money is pouring into property deals banks won’t touch

Heightened scrutiny of U.S. commercial real estate lending is paving the way for lightly regulated investors to gain a bigger toehold in lucrative deals. Private funds are seeking a record $32 billion for commercial-property debt as buyout firms, real estate investment trusts and hedge funds expand lending.

Bloomberg

The contrarian signal in the REIT breakout

For the first time since 1999, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is being reconfigured. The last time was when technology was established as an independent sector. The current reconstitution of the S&P 500 involves breaking out real estate investment trusts (REITs) from the financial industry group. 

Bloomberg

Featured Column

Technology is going to change everything

There’s never been a better moment in the history of commercial real estate in Calgary, or anywhere in the world. And the lessons we can learn from the Calgary marketplace apply regardless of where you live, or even what industry you’re in.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

Halifax gets $20M Citadel Hill tax windfall

Halifax Regional Municipality is receiving $20 million from the federal government after a 22-year-long dispute over the value of Citadel Hill. Nearly two years ago, both sides went before a federal panel to determine what Ottawa owed in back taxes for the hill in the middle of downtown that’s also a national historic site.

The Chronicle Herald

Windfall from new taxes highlights B.C. dependence on real estate

Is this good news or bad? On Thursday, the B.C. government announced it had raked in $2.2 billion in revenue from the property transfer tax and the new 15-per-cent tax on foreign buyers of Metro Vancouver homes. That’s a billion dollars more than the government had projected.

National Post

GM, union still at loggerheads over new products

General Motors Co. had still not met the demand by its union for new products for plants in Oshawa, Ont., and St. Catharines, Ont., Jerry Dias president of Unifor, which represents the workers, said Monday morning. The union has vowed to go on strike if GM does not allocate new products for the two plants.

Globe and Mail

Real Estate Companies

MNP and AHA to merge

MNP LLP, one of Canada’s largest national accounting and business consulting firms, announced today that A Hundred Answers (AHA), an advisory, digital and technology services firm based in Ottawa, will merge with MNP effective October 1, 2016.

Canada Newswire

REOC Financial Reports

	REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report
	RENX has prepared a table with a convenient list of the companies and a summary of links to their second-quarter 2016 results. Have we missed any?  Canadian REITs & REOCs – Second-quarter 2016 report

 

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Bay St. firm says it got CAP REIT wrong

Raymond James downgraded Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (CAR.UN-T) more than two years ago and now the analysts covering the property owner say the blew it. “We downgraded CAP REIT in May, 2014 and quite frankly, have been on the wrong side of the trade,” wrote Ken Avalos and Johann Rodrigues, analysts with Raymond James.

Financial Post

Pro REIT insiders buying as payout ratio improves

While insider sentiment in the real estate group is generally gloomy, we still find some bright spots. One of those sunny exceptions is Pro REIT (PRV.UN-X) which sports an annual yield estimated at 9.3 per cent. That high level may give investors some concern about sustainability.

Globe and Mail

Automotive Properties REIT completes equity offering

Automotive Properties REIT (APR.UN-T) has closed its previously announced bought deal public offering of 3,841,000 units at a price of $10.50 per unit to a syndicate of underwriters co-led by TD Securities Inc. and Canaccord Genuity Corp. for gross proceeds of approximately $40 million.

Canada Newswire

Retail

Hudson’s Bay is back in the toy game

Hudson’s Bay Co. is taking a page from its past. Its namesake department-store chain is launching toy departments in about 60 of its 90 outlets this month after having ditched the category almost a decade ago in favour of higher-margin fashions.

Globe and Mail

Sobeys will need to open its discount banner out West

Empire Co. (EMP.A-T) will have to introduce a discount banner to Western Canada in order to stem market share losses from Sobeys’ botched acquisition of Safeway Canada, according to one analyst. Meaningful integration challenges, higher relative prices, and the trend toward discount stores have damaged customer loyalty and led to 13 straight quarters of negative inflation-adjusted same-store sales.

Financial Post

Walmart Canada expands ban on Visa

Walmart Canada (WMT-N) will stop accepting Visa Inc cards at its 16 stores in the province of Manitoba starting on Oct. 24, a spokesman said on Wednesday, raising the stakes in a high-profile fee dispute. Manitoba was “most ready” for not accepting Visa cards, he said, without elaborating on why the province was chosen.

Financial Post

Aldo chain is seeking a foothold in emerging Gen Z market

Montreal-based Aldo Group became one of the world’s biggest footwear retailers by anticipating trends, so when it came to the emerging crop of young consumers, its executives didn’t want to assume they could rely on the tactics that sold shoes to earlier generations.

Financial Post

Macy’s Inc upgraded as ‘one of the stronger horses in the race’

Macy’s Inc. was upgraded to buy from neutral at Citigroup, as the retailer’s attractive free cash flow and dividend yield, coupled with opportunities to improve the business, make the stock attractive at current levels. Analyst Paul Lejuez told clients that Macy’s is rationalizing its stores much faster than the competition.

Financial Post

New Development

‘Locals first’ plan for West Vancouver condo project

A major development proposed for the West Vancouver waterfront in Horseshoe Bay will come back before the public on Monday, two months after developers pulled their application at the 11th hour. But this time, there’s a twist. The Sewell’s Landing proposal is a megaproject that includes 159 condo units in six buildings of up to 11 storeys.

Business in Vancouver

Toronto developer appeals rejection of bid to replace church

The planned demolition of a south end church for a two-tower student residence project has a Halifax developer and community association worried. Scott McCrea, of Armour Group, and the Park to Park Community Association are opposing Toronto-based Ashcroft Homes’ bid to build on a university-zoned piece of property.

Halifax Herald

Urbancorp home buyers lose fight to complete their purchases

Buyers in several insolvent Urbancorp projects have lost their bitter fight to convince a court to let them complete the purchase of their homes. On Thursday, an Ontario Superior Court judge approved the sale of six Urbancorp development sites in the Greater Toronto Area to five different buyers.

Globe and Mail

Halifax Exhibition Centre grounds being transformed

Developer and landlord Banc Group is investing roughly $3 million to build a Tim Hortons restaurant and gas station at the Halifax Exhibition Centre. “It will be right at the entrance,” Basim Halef, the president and founder of Banc Group said.

The Chronicle Herald

Sports Venues

Watch a time-lapse video of construction of Rogers Place

Edmonton Journal

Resorts

Kingswood hotel, water park expansion slated to open next year

Work on a $42-million project to expand a Fredericton area resort with a hotel, condominiums and what the company is calling the largest indoor water park in Atlantic Canada is underway. Kingswood Ventures Inc. President and CEO Brian Johnson said it was especially satisfying to see work on the 4½-star hotel begin.

CBC

Renovation and Restoration

Calgary Municipal Building partially closed after structural deficiency discovered

Five upper floors at the northeast corner of Calgary’s Municipal Building have been closed after work crews discovered a structural deficiency. City officials don’t believe there is an immediate risk to the safety of employees or the public but said they decided to close that section of the building “out of an abundance of caution.”

CBC

Other

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