NEW YORK CITY-Centro Properties Group is selling 588 of its US shopping centers to Blackstone for $9.4 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. The sale would help Centro beat back a company-wide debt load of roughly $16 billion.
Blackstone reportedly beat out competitors Starwood Capital, Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund VII and a joint venture of NRDC Equity Partners and AREA Property Partners for the pack. On February 28, the retail REIT requested a halt to trading on the Australian Stock Exchange pending the deal.
In an earlier report, chairman Robert Tsenin told the paper that the $16 billion in debt was “clearly unsustainable. Across the entire Centro Group and all of its funds under management, there is $16.5 billion of investment property and $16 billion of debt at December 31, 2010," he said.
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John Salustri
John Salustri has covered the commercial real estate industry for nearly 25 years. He was the founding editor of GlobeSt.com, and is a four-time recipient of the Excellence in Journalism award from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.
