Mega-Deals Make a Comeback

NEW YORK CITY-To have three multi-billion-dollar commercial real estate deals announced in a single day is something one might have expected in 2006 or 2007, not amid a post-downturn recovery. Yet the start of this week brought just a hat trick: Ventas’ $7.4-billion acquisition of Nationwide Health Properties, a $2.4-billion buy of most of the real estate assets of Genesis HealthCare by Health Care REIT and the Blackstone Group’s deal for 588 Centro Properties Group malls in the US for $9.4 billion.

“It’s pretty rare to see these types of deals this early in the cycle,” Real Capital Analytics’ Dan Fasulo tells GlobeSt.com. “We’re only at the beginning of a recovery. Usually, you see the $10-billion deals at the end of an up cycle.” That we’ve seen such mega-deals at this stage is “a great signal of how much liquidity exists on both the equity and debt sides to allow these transactions to take place,” says Fasulo, managing director of RCA.