Lehman Sells Half Its Stake in EQR, AvalonBay

NEW YORK CITY-Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is selling about half its stakes in both Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities, about one month after the 150-day lockup period on the stock ended. The offering by Jupiter Enterprise LP, an indirect subsidiary of LBHI, entails 15,068,000 common shares of EQR stock and 7,870,000 common shares in AVB, according to SEC filings, and represents about 9.8% of EQR and 13.2% of AVB.

In a release, AVB says Jupiter Enterprise is pricing the common stock at $137 per share. LBHI had received a total of 14,889,706 shares of AVB stock as part of its $6.5-billion sale of Archstone to the two REITs this past November. EQR issued a release on Thursday morning announcing that the shares—a little less than half the 34,468,085 EQR shares that were issued to LBHI as part of the Archstone deal—were priced, but did not provide pricing information. A spokesman for EQR did not respond to GlobeSt.com’s requests for clarification.