Real estate giants the Blackstone Group, Brookfield Asset Management, Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities have all submitted bids for real estate investment trust Archstone in recent weeks, but the offers haven’t been enough to resolve a disagreement among the owners over how to unwind Archstone, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Barclays and the estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings are in an ongoing dispute over Archstone, a $22 billion investment made at the peak of the commercial real estate boom that contributed to Lehman’s downfall. According to the Wall Street Journal, Barclays is pushing to sell the company or its assets privately whereas Lehman favors a longer-term approach: taking the company public in what would be the largest real estate initial public offering ever. Meanwhile, Bank of America, the third and final partner, has yet to decide on a favored strategy.
Barclays had hoped offers from Blackstone and the like would be so high as to convince the others to sell outright.
Equity Residential, AvalonBay, and Brookfield bid for the entire company, though none of their offers were all-cash, while Blackstone made offers only for small sections of it, sources told the Journal. [WSJ]