Brookfield to exit the housing business

Brookfield Properties, the New York-based landlord and subsidiary of Toronto’s Brookfield Asset Management, plans to depart from the housing market entirely to focus exclusively on office properties, Bloomberg News reported. The company, which just invested billions in bankrupt shopping mall owner General Growth Properties and also has $1.2 billion in residential assets, is currently in talks to merge its Carma Development home building unit with Brookfield Asset Management’s Brookfield Homes. It plans to then sell its home building operations, which it said produced $33 million in revenue in the second quarter, to free up capital to invest in more office buildings, particularly in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. The company has also changed its name to Brookfield Office Properties to affirm its new focus. [Bloomberg]