Brookfield Weighs Making Bid for GGP

Brookfield offices in Toronto; the asset manager has also bid for Rouse Properties, spun off from GGP in 2012.

TORONTO—Having made an unsolicited offer earlier this month for Rouse Properties , which was spun off from General Growth Properties Inc. in 2012, Brookfield Asset Management reportedly is considering a bid for GGP itself. Spokesman for BAM and GGP declined to comment Friday on a Reuters report that the Toronto-based asset management firm was exploring an acquisition of the remainder of GGP that it does not already own. The Cleveland-based shopping center REIT has a market value of about $24 billion, and BAM entities already own approximately 34% of GGP. Sources said to be familiar with the matter told Reuters Thursday that BAM has approached several potential partners, including sovereign wealth funds, to discuss the possibility of taking GGP private. However, the sources cautioned that it wasn’t certain that BAM would make an offer. A takeout of GGP would continue a run of REIT privatizations over the past several months. Last year Brookfield itself acquired apartment REIT Associated Estates Realty , also headquartered in the Cleveland area, for $2.5 billion. In the retail arena, the Blackstone Group took Excel Trust private for $2 billion; the deal was one of three 2015 privatizations by Blackstone, with the largest, its $8-billion takeover of healthcare REIT BioMed Realty Trust , closing this past Wednesday. The board of RSE said earlier this month that it was weighing BAM’s offer to buy the remaining two-thirds of the REIT’s common stock that BAM and its affiliates don’t already own for $17 per share, or approximately US$657 million. RSE’s board has also hired BofA Merrill Lynch as its financial advisor and Sidley Austin LLP as legal counsel in exchange with the BAM offer.