Hines REIT Completes Sale to Blackstone

Howard Hughes Center in Los Angeles and six other Hines REIT assets have traded to a Blackstone fund.

HOUSTON—Hines Real Estate Investment Trust Inc. said Friday it had completed its sale of seven West Coast office assets to an affiliate of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII for $1.162 billion, a deal first announced this past July. Shareholders in Hines REIT approved the board-recommended plan for liquidation during the REIT’s annual shareholder meeting this past Monday.

“The sale of seven of our West Coast office assets to a Blackstone affiliate was a significant and positive transaction and a result of our focus on maximizing the assets’ appeal to the institutional market and providing Hines REIT’s investors with an attractive outcome,” says Sherri Schugart, president and CEO of Hines REIT. “The vast majority of our investors will have experienced a positive return on their investment in Hines REIT given the cash distributions we have paid through the years combined with capital we expect to return to investors as a result of this liquidity event and capital we have returned in previous years. We are pleased with this performance relative to the performance of many of our peers and other investment alternatives that had comparable investment strategies and timing, especially considering the impact of the financial crisis and economic downturn during 2008 and 2009.”