Blackstone Real Estate to take Retail Opportunity private in $4 bln deal

Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust

06/11/2024 18:22

Nov 6 (Reuters) - Blackstone Real Estate  BX.N  on
Wednesday entered into an agreement to take Retail Opportunity
Investments Corp  ROIC.O  private in an all-cash transaction
valued at about $4 billion, including debt.
    Reuters reported on Sunday that the alternative asset
manager was in advanced talks for the acquisition of the
company, which owns strip malls across the United States.
    Owners of strip malls, pharmacy chains and retail stores
have managed to pass on increased costs from high inflation to
consumers over the past year, benefiting landlords like ROIC.
    The real estate investment trust has raised rents, achieving
a 13.8% increase in same-space new leases during the third
quarter, according to its most recent quarterly report.
    Blackstone will acquire ROIC, which owns more than 90
grocery-anchored shopping centers, for $17.50 a share. The offer
represents a premium of 5.5% to the ROIC stock's last close.
    Shares of ROIC, which has a market capitalization of $2.13
billion, gained 4.3% on Wednesday. They have risen 18.2% so far
this year, underperforming some other real estate investment
trusts and making it an attractive target for buyout firms like
Blackstone.
    Blackstone is one of the world's largest investors in real
estate, with $336.1 billion in assets in the sector as of the
end of June.
    Earlier this year, it signed a deal to acquire Apartment
Income REIT for $10 billion.
    The ROIC deal is expected to close in the first quarter of
2025.

 (Reporting by Ananta Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju
Samuel)
 ((Ananta.agarwal@thomsonreuters.com;))