ARCP Scraps Plan to Buy Cole Credit III

NEW YORK CITY-American Realty Capital Properties Inc. on Thursday said it had withdrawn its $9.7-billion offer to acquire Cole Credit Property Trust III. Had it gone through, the acquisition would have created the largest publicly traded net lease REIT.

“Since ARCP first reached out to CCPT III, it has been our sincere hope that we would be able to explore an amicable combination of our two companies that would maximize value for our stockholders as well as those of CCPT III,” ARCP’s chairman and CEO, Nicholas Schorsch, says in a statement. “We received encouragement for this transaction from stockholders of both companies, research analysts, and leaders in the broker-dealer and financial community.”