LNR Property, a national commercial real estate investment, finance and management company that was spun off from Lennar, and 50-year-old Lennar, one of the nation's largest homebuilders, formed a partnership to purchase Newhall, a developer in north Los Angeles County. The transaction, in the form of a merger between the LNR/Lennar entity and Newhall, closed much earlier than the originally expected date of mid-2004.

The LNR/Lennar joint venture is planning to develop a major commercial and residential project on a large tract of land in California that it acquired in the deal, Alan Axelrod, head of the corporate and securities department for the locally based law firm Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, tells GlobeSt.com. Axelrod represented LNR and Lennar in the transaction. Details of the development plans were not available at press time.

Also with the closing of the merger, the LNR/Lennar joint venture and another LNR/Lennar joint venture borrowed $600 million from a group of lenders, of which $400 million was used toward the merger, Axelrod says.