Brookfield buying Forest City Realty Trust in $11.4B deal

Brookfield buying Forest City Realty Trust in $11.4B deal

The purchase by Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (BAM-A-T) of developer Forest City Realty Trust (FCE-A-N) in an $11.4 billion deal bolsters Brookfield’s position as the second-largest owner of U.S. CRE by value. Forest City’s portfolio includes 6.3 million square feet of office space, 2.3 million square feet of life science buildings, 2.2 million square feet of retail space and 18,500 multi-family units.

CoStar Group – Globe Newswire

Brookfield Infrastructure buying Enercare for $4.3B

Canadian home services company Enercare Inc. (ECI-T) said on Wednesday it would be bought by Brookfield Infrastructure Partners for $4.3 billion as the asset management firm looks to expand its business across Canada. Enercare, of Markham, Ont., provides a variety of home services such as electricity, water heaters, furnaces and air conditioners. Shares in the company soared 52 per cent to $28.86 in early trading.

Financial Post – Canada Newswire

WPT, CPPIB, AIMCo form $1B JV to buy U.S. industrial

WPT Industrial Real Estate Investment Trust (WIR-U-T), Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMC0) have formed a joint venture to acquire up to $1 billion in industrial properties in strategic U.S. logistics markets through a “value-add and development investment strategy”. CPPIB and AIMCo will each own a 45 per cent interest in the joint venture and WPT will own the remaining 10 per cent.

Property Biz Canada

CPPIB, Challenger invest in Aussie, N.Z. real estate debt

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) Tuesday announced its wholly owned subsidiary, CPPIB Credit Investments Inc., has agreed to participate in $483 million Cdn of seed lending to a newly established fund with Challenger Investment Partners (CIP) to invest in middle-market real estate loans in Australia and New Zealand. CIP will source and manage investments on behalf of the fund.

Globe Newswire

NorthWest Healthcare announces $1.9B Australian JV

NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT (NWH-UN-T) today announced it has entered into a joint venture agreement with a large sovereign wealth fund. With an indefinite term and an aggregate gross commitment of $1.9 billion Cdn (debt and equity), the mandate of the JV is to acquire and develop high-quality core Australian healthcare real estate, including hospitals and related medical office buildings.

Canada Newswire

AIMCo to redevelop Edmonton’s HSBC Bank Place

Faced with stiff competition for tenants from ICE District and other new office developments in downtown Edmonton, the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) says it will completely redevelop its HSBC Bank Place tower in the downtown business sector. The renovations will upgrade HSBC Bank Place from a class-A office building to class-AA. AIMCo says. Preliminary work got underway in June, with completion set for late 2019.

Property Biz Canada

Ivanhoé invests $55M in Mic Mac Mall renovation

Mic Mac Mall will bring life to its former Target store as part of Ivanhoé Cambridge’s $55-million revitalization of the Halifax-Dartmouth shopping centre. “The retail industry is a competitive market, and the same goes for Halifax and Atlantic Canada,” said mall GM Tamitha Oakley. “We believe in investing in shopping centres and enhancing our position and our competitive mix and tenant mix for the benefit of the customers.”

Property Biz Canada

Delayed delivery of the RENX commercial newsletter

Due to technical difficulties we were unable to distribute this newsletter yesterday.   We apologize for the delayed delivery. 

Taggart eyes new retail plaza in Ottawa’s East End

An Ottawa developer is looking to add a grocery store, restaurant, gas station and other retail shops in a fast-growing corner of the city’s eastern suburbs. In addition to a 36,600-square-foot grocery store, Taggart Realty Management‘s plans for the property include 32,300 square feet of retail space, three restaurants – including one with a drive-through – as well as a car wash, gas station and 343 parking spaces.

Ottawa Business Journal

New towers planned for Ottawa’s Booth Street

The federal custodian of a disused laboratory complex in central Ottawa plans to rezone the property to permit a handful of new towers, rising up to 24 storeys, in advance of selling the land to private developers. The 6.5-acre Booth Street campus was once home to the Mines and Resources Branch of Natural Resources Canada. Parts of the complex have been vacant for nearly two decades.

Ottawa Business Journal

Toronto moving forward with high-tech neighbourhood

An additional US$40 million has been secured for a plan to build a new high-tech neighbourhood at Toronto’s waterfront. Waterfront Toronto said on Tuesday its board voted to move forward in creating the plan with Sidewalk Labs, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet. Sidewalk Labs said the funding comes as the two sides signed a legal agreement on the plan.

CP24 – Globe and Mail – Canada Newswire

CMLS: August 2018 Commercial Mortgage Commentary

CMLS Financial, one of Canada’s largest, independently owned mortgage services companies, has released its latest Commercial Mortgage Commentary, an in-depth analysis of the commercial mortgage market in Canada. Our August 2018 commentary looks at the change in the overnight target rate, further flattening of the GOC yield curve, commercial mortgage spreads and the latest issuances in CMBS and the senior unsecured market.

CMLS Financial

Airbnb share doubles in Vancouver, Toronto

Newly released documents to Canada’s finance minister suggest traditional hotels in two of Canada’s biggest cities have not fared badly as they face rising competition from online platforms like Airbnb. The April 18 memo to Finance Minister Bill Morneau says that average hotel occupancy rates in Vancouver and Toronto were higher than Airbnb listings between 2015 and 2017.

Vancouver Sun

Airbnb to remit hotel tax on Ottawa listings

Anyone renting an Airbnb listing in the nation’s capital will now need to pay a hotel tax. The tax revenue will flow into municipal coffers. The deal to collect and remit the accommodation tax marks only the second such tax agreement the online platform has finalized in Canada. Airbnb already collects and remits an accommodation levy in Quebec the company says totalled $2.8 million to the province.

Ottawa Citizen

How is CRE priced today? – Lennard Commercial Realty

When I walk into my office each morning, there is a metal file organizer that holds broker letters of commercial properties that are for sale divided into land, office, retail and industrial. This file organizer is a foot thick of listings. I regularly cull the files to get rid of duplicates and when the same listing comes in a month later, I just erase the email.

Urban Toronto – Property Biz Canada

Sales of industrial real estate lead way in U.S.

Industrial property sales outperformed other major commercial sectors across the U.S. in the second quarter, driven by the popularity of online retailer Amazon and the migration of brick-and-mortar retailers to consumer-driven, e-commerce strategies. While sales in all four sectors — office, industrial, retail and multi-family — fell year-over-year, industrial sales slid just two per cent. That compares to sales falling 18 per cent for retail.

CoStar Group

Featured Column

Saskatoon industrial market in recovery mode

These are rare times when what appears to be a negative economic indicator is actually a necessary, painful step on the road to recovery; a time when a story can be framed negatively or positively when viewed through the lens of reality.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

More Canadians working from cottages, vacation homes

The telecommuting revolution envisioned by futurists, in which vast numbers of workers eschew their daily commute in favour of working remotely from home, never quite turned out as predicted. However, a growing number of Canadians are taking the term “working remotely” literally, leaving the hustle and bustle of city life behind to work from their cottage or winter home down south, says a real estate expert.

CTV

Real Estate Companies

Starwood Capital buys 3,000 N.C. apartments

Investment firm Starwood Capital Group bought an 11-property North Carolina apartment portfolio from multi-family developer Electra America in a sign of surging demand across the region for rentals in a strong economy. The purchase extends Starwood’s heavy investment in slightly older units in secondary southeastern markets. local experts estimate the price would top $400 million. 

CoStar Group

Avison Young acquires U.K. retail firm

Canada Newswire

REOC Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Brookfield Property Partners, (BPY-UN-T), Globe Newswire

REIT Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Granite REIT, (GRT-UN-T), Canada Newswire

* Maplewood International REIT, (MWI-UN-X), Maplewood media release

* Melcor REIT, (MR-UN-T), Globe Newswire

* Morguard North American Residential REIT, (MRG-UN-T), Canada Newswire

Real Estate Investment Trusts

AHIP completes renovation of Baltimore hotel

American Hotel Income Properties (AHIP) REIT  (HOT.UN-T) announced it has completed approximately US$1 million in renovations at its Hilton Garden Inn White Marsh hotel in Baltimore. Two other AHIP hotels will also have renovations completed in the next month – the Embassy Suites Cincinnati (Covington) and the Embassy Suites Dallas (Fort Worth).

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada

Dream Global, NorthWest have done well

Dream Global REIT (DRG.UN-T) has experienced some nice growth due to having a focus on key markets in Western Europe. It has a gross asset value of about $5 billion, of which 73% is in Germany, 21% is in the Netherlands, and three per cent  each is in Belgium and Austria.  About 67% of NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT‘d (NWH.UN-T) net operating income (NOI) comes from outside Canada, including Australasia, Brazil, and Germany.

Motley Fool

Retail

Sporting Life to open first Vancouver store

With the notable success of its 12 stores and growing e-commerce business, Sporting Life will enter B.C. with a 44,000-square-foot store at The Amazing Brentwood in 2019. Sporting Life is distinguished by its unique mix of fashion and sport, combining upmarket apparel with high performance gear for activities including skiing, tennis and cycling.

Globe Newswire

George Weston Q2 profit drops

George Weston Ltd. (WN-T) is forging ahead with its plan to reduce the number of different products offered by its bakery division but progress is slower than expected, chairman and CEO Galen G. Weston said Tuesday. Second-quarter sales at Weston Foods, the smaller of the company’s two main divisions, were down 8.1 per cent at $468 million due to a combination of currency fluctuations, volume and changes in the mix of products sold.

Toronto Star – Canada Newswire

Restaurants and Eateries

Tim Hortons owner tops profit estimates

Fast food chain Restaurant Brands International Inc (QSR-T) on Wednesday topped analysts’ estimates for second-quarter profit, as a revamp of Tim Hortons helped improve the coffee chain’s same-store sales. The company said in April it would spend $700 million over four years to overhaul the stores, after the popular coffee chain was hit by bad management-related publicity. The coffee chain was also losing its brand cache with younger customers.

Reuters – PR Newswire

Cannabis industry news

Molson Coors Canada enters cannabis sector

Quebec-based cannabis company HEXO is partnering with Molson Coors to develop non-alcoholic, cannabis-infused drinks in Canada. They will form a standalone company with its own board of directors and independent management. Molson Coors will control 57.5 per cent of the unnamed venture, the company said in a news release. HEXO will own the rest. 

CBC – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Calgary tentatively approves 14 cannabis shop locations

Fourteen cannabis retail shops in 11 Calgary neighbourhoods have been tentatively green-lighted by city officials who rejected another six applications. Those receiving a positive decision — but which still must obtain a city business licence and provincial permit — were located in the Beltline, Signal Hill, Mount Pleasant, Rundle, Mission, Sunnyside, Bridgeland/Riverside, Coventry, South Calgary, Shawnee Slopes and East Shepherd Industrial areas.

Ccalgary Herald – CBC

Infrastructure

China eyes infrastructure boost to cushion growth

China plans to put more money into infrastructure projects and ease borrowing curbs on local governments to help soften the blow to the economy from the Sino-U.S. trade war, policy sources said. China’s trade war with the U.S. has clouded the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy and roiled financial markets. A sharper slowdown in the Chinese economy could fuel job losses, a concern Beijing has raised.

Reuters

Other

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