Lehman Brothers Holdings matched Equity Residential’s $1.33 billion bid for a 26.5 percent stake in Archstone, and then sued partners Bank of America and Barclays for breaching Lehman’s right of first refusal for the stake in a sale, Bloomberg News reported.
Archstone is a real estate investment trust with stakes in 60,000 U.S. apartment units and 14,000 units in Germany, that Lehman purchased in October 2007 with Tishman Speyer for $22 billion. Lehman eventually filed for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history and refinanced the portfolio and brought in equity partners Barclays and BofA, which combined for a 53 percent stake. BofA and Barclays wanted to sell their stake to recoup value, but Lehman wanted to wait for a public offering or sale of the entire company.
The pair agreed to sell 26.5 percent of Archstone to Equity earlier this month, giving it the option to buy the other 26.5 percent stake as well. Equity Chairman Sam Zell had said he eventually wants to own the entire portfolio because of the strong rental market. But Lehman submitted the paperwork to match Equity’s bid in front of the deadline, and filed a suit in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court to ensure it gets the stake that would give it control.
“Defendants have conspired to sell their combined approximately 53 percent interests in Archstone to Archstone’s largest competitor — Equity Residential,” Lehman said in the suit, which seeks to block the sale. [Bloomberg News]
March 13, 2012 at 3:01 am, Housing analyst says “death spiral” could come to U.S. housing market | Посты said:
[...] to Goodman’s calculations, 2.5 million homes have already fallen into foreclosure since Lehman Brothers Holdings’ collapse, and another 4.5 million mortgage holders have “given up paying and are likely to [...]