HOUSTON—AmREIT has finally found an appropriate buyer after rejecting a bid earlier this year from Regency Centers to acquire it. On Friday night the company announced it entered into an agreement with Edens Investment Trust. Edens is purchasing AmREIT in a cash transaction valued at $763 million, or for $26.55 per share.

The transaction price represents a premium of nearly 40% over AmREIT's closing stock price on July 9, 2014, the last trading day before the disclosure of the unsolicited offer from Regency Centers. It is also a premium of 21% over that $22 per share proposal.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015, contingent upon customary closing conditions and the approval of AmREIT's stockholders, who will vote on the transaction at a special meeting on a date to be announced.

In a research note last month, SNL Financial noted that AmREIT's property exposure is dispersed across three states, with about 85% of its operating portfolio area in Texas. These 33 properties comprise roughly 3 million square feet, scattered across the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin MSAs. The total size of AmREIT's operating portfolio is roughly 3.4 million square feet, with an average occupancy for the portfolio of 95.1%, SNL said.

AmREIT posted a year-to-date total return of 35.3% as of Oct. 17, outperforming the SNL US REIT Retail Shopping Center and SNL US REIT Equity indexes by 18.4 percentage points and 18.3 percentage points, respectively, SNL also said. AmREIT is also outpacing potential bidders Regency and Weingarten in total return by 10.3 percentage points and 11.0 percentage points, respectively.

Jefferies LLC acted as financial advisor to AmREIT and Morrison & Foerster and Venable acted as AmREIT's legal advisors. Goldman, Sachs acted as financial advisor to Edens, with King & Spalding acting as its legal advisor.