Cousins Shareholders Hit Pay Dirt

ATLANTA-Shareholders of Cousins Properties Inc. common stock will be breaking out the bubbly Sept. 22 when they receive special dividend checks of $2.07 per share from a total dividend of $100.3 million resulting from the company’s sale of four properties.

Shareholders of record on Sept. 15 are eligible. “At Cousins, our primary goal is to create value for our shareholders through the development of real estate,” says Cousins president and CEO Tom Bell. “In selling these four properties, we were able to obtain excellent pricing from the current property markets and fully capture the value we created.”

The properties are Mira Mesa MarketCenter, a 464,000-sf power center near San Diego that sold for $87 million, or $187.50 per sf, to California-based DSB Properties in late May; Cerritos Corporate Center, a two-building, 327,000-sf office project in Cerritos, CA that sold for $79.2 million, or $242.20 per sf, to Los Angeles-based Maguire Partners in late June; Presidential MarketCenter, a 374,000-sf power center in suburban Atlanta that sold for $47.2 million, or $126.20 per sf, to North Miami Beach, FL-based Equity One Inc. in mid-August; and Perimeter Expo, a 176,000-sf power center in suburban Atlanta that sold for $45 million, or $255.68 per sf, to a fund managed by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. of New York on Sept. 3.