Cara gobbles up St-Hubert chicken chain

Cara gobbles up St-Hubert chicken chain

Cara Operations Ltd. (CAO-T), the largest Canadian-owned restaurant company, welcomed Quebec’s rotisserie chicken chain St-Hubert to its table Thursday, securing both a beloved brand and access to an important market. Vaughan, Ont.-based Cara will take on 117 restaurants in a $537-million deal that accelerates its expansion into a province where it has scarcely had a presence.

Globe and Mail – Toronto Star – Financial Post – Montreal Gazette

PC Urban reloads an old war factory

A wartime Vancouver factory building is about to get a makeover into an office low-rise for the city’s emerging creative class. The Lightworks Building had been a vital part of the war effort, making radios and radars for ships. PC Urban Properties Corp. is retaining the original art deco facade and adding a four-storey glass office building.

Globe and Mail

Experts optimistic about Vancouver office market

Fears downtown Vancouver’s decade-high office vacancy rate would balloon much higher hasn’t materialized the way many thought it would, experts said Wednesday at the Vancouver Real Estate Forum. At the mid-point of last summer, amid a two-million-square-foot office tower building boom, Vancouver’s downtown office vacancy had climbed to nearly 10 per cent.

Property Biz Canada

Anbang abandons bid to buy Starwood Hotels

China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co said Thursday it has abandoned its $18-billion Cdn bid for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc (HOT-N), paving the way for Marriott International Inc (MAR-Q) to buy the Sheraton and Westin hotels operator. It also represents a blow to corporate China’s growing ambitions to acquire U.S. assets.

Reuters – CoStar Group – Commercial Property Executive – National Real Estate Investor

Trump’s troubled Toronto tower

Neil Labatte has met Donald Trump once, in the summer of 2014. Afterward, “he sent me a picture,” Labatte says with a grin. “It says, ‘You’re the greatest.’ So he must think I’m great.” That is surely the case — for Labatte runs the Trump International Hotel & Tower in downtown Toronto, and anything or anyone associated with Trump is, according to the man himself, “great.”

Globe and Mail

TO council endorses Gardiner East rebuild

Toronto council took major steps forward Thursday on two seemingly never-ending transportation files costing billions of dollars. They approved, by a 36-5 vote, a more than $1-billion plan to reconfigure the eastern portion of the crumbling Gardiner Expressway — more than twice what it would cost to tear it down.

Toronto Star – CBC News – Toronto Star

Ottawa to consider record brownfield grant request

An application for $15.8 million in tax and fee breaks would be the largest brownfield grant dished out by the City of Ottawa if council approves the request next month. The Regional Group wants to transform the former Oblates land along the Rideau River into the Greystone Village mixed-use community. The property has about 215,000 tonnes of contaminated soil.

Ottawa Citizen

CT REIT buying Sears distribution centre

Sears Canada (SCC-T) has agreed to sell and lease back a distribution centre in Calgary to Canadian Tire’s real estate trust. CCT Real Estate Investment Trust (CRT.UN-T) says it will spend about $84 million including transaction costs for the location. The Sears property is close to two Canadian Tire distribution centres, including one acquired by the trust in 2014.

Financial Post – Canada Newswire

Will Simons’ westward expansion pay off?

On the day I meet Peter Simons, it’s late November — for retailers, the most wonderful time of the year. But this year, not so much. Sears Canada has just announced it will shed yet more real estate in its struggle to stay solvent. Mexx Canada is preparing to file for bankruptcy . . . 

Globe and Mail

Save-On-Foods opens first Regina store

Save-On-Foods takes the first step in its march eastward on Friday, with the official opening of its Regina South store. But Save-On-Foods president Darrell Jones said Regina is just “the beachhead” in the B.C.-based food retailer’s aggressive 50-store expansion plan over the next the next three to five years.

Regina Leader-Post – CBC News – Revelstoke Mountaineer – Moose Jaw Times-Herald

HBC testing concept stores in Winnipeg

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC-T) is trying out a new concept and Winnipeg is the only city where it’s being tested. The stores are at three former Home Outfitters locations, but unlike Home Outfitters, which carried mainly bedroom, bathroom and kitchen products, the new stores feature items “for every room” in the home.

Winnipeg Free Press

Saskatoon may limit office buildings outside downtown

Over the course of Saskatoon’s economic boom, the city has seen a growing trend of large office buildings sprouting up in industrial areas where land is cheap and parking is easy. However, industrial-zoned areas were never meant to accommodate large, single-purpose office buildings, says Alan Wallace, the city’s director of planning and development.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Life Lessons: Colin Scarlett, Colliers

Colin Scarlett has worked at Colliers for 17 years doing essentially the same job: helping companies find office space. A few years ago he realized that he needed to change how he approached his job. Five years ago, Scarlett made the decision to develop a specialization, and now works exclusively with law firms and tech companies. 

Business in Vancouver

The buildings behind real estate barons

Earlier this month, Forbes published a list of the 20 richest real estate billionaires in the world in 2016. CrediFi went beyond the rankings to see which U.S. commercial real estate properties are in the portfolios that helped these billionaires make it to where they are today. Here’s what we found:

Forbes

U.S. property sector stats worth noting

PHOTO GALLERY: Nearing the end of first-quarter 2016, both global and domestic issues are leaving their mark on the U.S. real estate industry. The U.S. dollar grew stronger while other currencies weakened. Domestic employment numbers are picking up. The Federal Reserve opted to leave its key interest rate unchanged for the time being.

National Real Estate Investor

Featured Column

Craig Wright, the fascinating economist

Here’s an opening I never thought I’d write: “I just got to know a fascinating guy. He’s an economist.” Craig Wright, RBC EconomistCraig Wright, the chief economist of the Royal Bank of Canada, will be in Vancouver on April 21 to deliver a speech to the Urban Development Institute.

Read more

Real Estate Companies

Firm Capital appoints Oliver independent director

Firm Capital Mortgage Investment Corporation (FC-T) announced the appointment of The Honourable Joe Oliver, P.C. as a new independent director. Oliver, the former Minister of Finance, was previously a senior investment banker with Merrill Lynch, Nesbitt Thomson and First Marathon.

Canada Newswire

REOC Financial Reports

Latest fourth-quarter report:

* Trez Capital Senior Mortgage Investment Corp., (TZZ-T), Canada Newswire 

	REITs & REOCs – Fourth-quarter 2015 report
	RENX has prepared a table with a convenient list of the companies and a summary of links to their reports that will be updated quarterly. Fourth-quarter results are now arriving. Canadian REITs & REOCs – Fourth-quarter 2015 report

 

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Northwest increases size of public offering

NorthWest Healthcare Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (NWH.UN-T) announced it has amended the terms of its previously announced public offering to increase the size of the offering to 6,550,000 trust units, at a price of $9.20 per unit, representing gross proceeds of $60.26 million.

Marketwired

InnVest completes mortgage financing

InnVest Real Estate Investment Trust (INN.UN-T) announced it has completed the financing of its recently acquired Marriott Ottawa Hotel. The financing is a seven-year, $54.4 million mortgage with a fixed interest rate of 3.87% with a U.S. financial institution.

Canada Newswire

Plaza completes bought deal public offering

Plaza Retail REIT (PLZ.UN-T) announced it has closed its previously announced bought deal public offering of 5,002,500 trust units of Plaza issued from treasury at a price of $4.60 per unit for gross proceeds to the REIT of $23,011,500, representing the base offering size of 4,350,000 units.

Canada Newswire

AHIP announces additonal guestrooms at Oak Tree Inn

American Hotel Income Properties REIT LP (HOT.UN-T) today announced the acquisition of its previously announced 24-room expansion at the existing, high-occupancy, 116-room Oak Tree Inn hotel and Penny’s Diner located in Hearne, Texas for a total purchase price of US$2.4 million.

Marketwired

Legal Corner

SNC suing MUHC over superhospital contract

Montreal engineering giant SNC-Lavalin is suing the McGill University Health Centre for $330 million over the contract to build the new McGill superhospital, alleging last-minute changes to the contract significantly boosted construction costs. SNC launched the legal action along with its consortium partner to build the hospital, Innisfree UK.

CBC News – Globe and Mail – Montreal Gazette

Retail

Rona shareholders approve Lowe’s takeover

Rona (RON-T) shareholders have overwhelmingly approved a $3.2-billion friendly takeover offer from U.S. home renovation chain Lowe’s (LOW-N). More than 99.9 per cent of votes cast, representing 70.22 per cent of Rona’s 106.9 million common shares, supported the deal first announced nearly two months ago. The transaction pays Rona shareholders $24 cash per common share.

Financial Post

Reitmans Canada posts fourth-quarter loss

Reitmans (Canada) Limited‘s (RET-T) sales for the year ended Jan. 30, were $937.2 million compared with $939.4 million for the year ended Jan. 31, 2015, a decrease of 0.2 per cent, despite a net reduction of 56 stores primarily attributable to the closure of Smart Set stores. Same store sales increased 5.1 per cent with stores increasing 2.5 per cent and e-commerce increasing 69.1 per cent.

Canada Newswire

Restaurants and Eateries

Starbucks takes pioneering app to grande level

Starbucks Corp. (SBUX-Q), a pioneer in getting consumers to pay for products with a mobile phone, is boosting spending on digital ventures this year as it enhances the capability of its app in Asia, Europe and Latin America. The coffee chain is promoting a new feature  that lets customers order and pay for beverages in advance.

Bloomberg – Bloomberg – Ottawa Business Journal

McDonald’s adding 1,500 Asian outlets

McDonald’s Corp. (MCD-N) said Thursday it plans to open 1,500 new restaurants in China, South Korea and Hong Kong as it looks to faster-growing markets to help drive a global turnaround. McDonald’s said it is looking for partners to help finance that expansion.

Globe and Mail

New Development

MacEwan’s new arts centre charms Edmontonians

On the fifth floor of MacEwan University’s new $180-million Centre for the Arts and Culture, construction workers, tethered by safety lines, wrestle a giant pane of glass into position. The window is just over two metres high, and about 1-1/2 metres wide. Under the deep blue sky, the glass glints in the bright March sunlight. 

Edmonton Journal

Other

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