1. South Korea: Singapore Firm Buys Prominent Seoul Hotel
Singapore-based real estate investment trust ARA Asset Management plans to acquire the 434-room Conrad Seoul from Brookfield Asset Management of Toronto for 400 billion South Korean won or about $292 million, in what would be the country’s largest hotel deal so far in 2024.
The deal was earlier reported by Korean business publication Maeil, and regional media outlets reported last fall that Brookfield initially placed the 12-year-old Seoul property on the market with a guide price of more than $370 million. Sources said the ARA purchase does not include the adjacent International Financial Center, a mixed-use office and retail property that Brookfield purchased last year along with the hotel.
2. UK: Investors Pull Plans for First London REIT Listing in Three Years
Plans for the first real estate investment trust listing on the London market in three years have been dropped after the minimum fundraising target was missed.
Organizers of the proposed Special Opportunities REIT had been targeting a fund-raise of £500 million, comprising an initial placing, an offer for subscription and cornerstone subscriptions of ordinary shares of 1 penny each at an issue price of 100 pence per ordinary share. It would have been the largest such offering in a decade.
3. France: Blackstone Acquires Two Paris Luxury Stores
After selling the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Paris to Italy’s Gruppo Statuto for €205 million at the beginning of the year, Mandarin Oriental International Limited is now disposing of two luxury retail boutiques next door.
Located at 251 rue Saint-Honoré, the assets were acquired for €148 million by Lavender Propco SNC, a fund managed by Blackstone Europe, the hotel group said in a regulatory note published in Singapore. Currently leased to high-end fashion houses Versace and Ports 1961, the retail spaces total about 1,100 square meters.
4. Germany: Apollo-Owned Company Restructures Bond Financing
Demire, a commercial property investment firm that is majority-owned by Apollo Global Management, has restructured €499 million in bonds maturing in mid-October with a majority of its creditors as part of a larger financial reconfiguration.
Demire plans to raise up to €159.6 million and has also been promised a loan from Apollo ranging from €68.3 million to €100 million. To free up further financial resources, company officials said Demire could also opt to transfer properties in the German cities of Essen, Cologne, Aschheim and Kassel directly to Apollo.
5. Canada: Competition Bureau To Investigate Sobeys, Loblaw
Canada’s federal Competition Bureau has won a court order permitting it to investigate two of the country’s largest grocery chains for what it describes as possible property-control violations in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia.
A bureau statement said Sobeys and Loblaw will be required to participate in an investigation into possible anticompetitive restrictions placed on real estate. At issue are lease clauses employed by the grocery chains that “prohibit the landlord from leasing space to another tenant that competes with the existing tenant,” and restrictions preventing commercial land owners or purchasers from operating or leasing their properties to certain types of businesses, the bureau said.
6. US: WeWork Exits Bankruptcy With New CEO
Global flexible workspace provider WeWork has emerged from bankruptcy protection and named a longtime veteran of brokerage Cushman & Wakefield as its new chief executive.
WeWork said David Tolley, a former Blackstone private equity partner who joined WeWork more than a year ago and steered its restructuring, stepped down as CEO and was replaced by John Santora, most recently Cushman & Wakefield’s chairman in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. New York-based WeWork said it exited bankruptcy June 11 after filing for Chapter 11 protection last November as it restructured its finances.
This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.