The joint venture's team--including its leader Tal Hicks--will be absorbed into Ross Perot Jr.'s Hillwood operation, effectively creating a competitor to the premier Sacramento-based Panattoni Development Co. which plans to immediately set up a Dallas office.

The office will house the newly formed, independent subsidiary of Panattoni Construction Co. In May, it had been announced that the construction company strategy will consolidate five construction affiliates in the move.

"This joint venture went beyond expectation in allowing each organization to achieve its original goal," Todd Platt, Hillwood Investments president, says in a prepared statement. "Now Hillwood and Panattoni can each move forward and implement its own unique business strategy."