Saturday, October 07, 2006

JP Morgan Chase Closes $460 Million Sale Leaseback of US Office Portfolio

CoStar Group - October 4, 2006

Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM) acquired a 5.3 million-square-foot commercial portfolio from JP Morgan Chase & Co. valued at $460 million. The portfolio is comprised of 33 properties and banking centers spanning 10 cities, mostly in the Midwest, including Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas, Milwaukee and Baton Rouge, LA.

Under the agreement with Brookfield's Real Estate Opportunity Fund, JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. has signed long-term, lease-back deals for significant portions of the space.

Trophy acquisitions include the distinctive, 1 million-square-foot 300 S. Riverside Plaza in Chicago; Arizona’s tallest structure, the 670,000-square-foot Chase Tower in Phoenix; and Milwaukee’s 472,500-square-foot Chase Tower. Local reports put the S. Riverside Plaza deal upwards of $200 million.

Brookfield declined to disclose the complete list of properties.

The acquisition is the Fund’s largest to date, although Brookfield itself has been one of the most active acquirers of highrise office assets of late, announcing in June that it had teamed with New York-based private equity investor The Blackstone Group to acquire Trizec Properties (NYSE:TRZ) and Trizec Canada (TSX:TZC) for $8.9 billion.

Brookfield is a Toronto-based REIT focused on property, power and infrastructure assets. The company has holdings in North America, Europe and Brazil, including more than $50 billion in U.S. assets under management. Sphere: Related Content

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