Cedar Realty Trust considering sale

Massapequa-based REIT also exploring sale of shopping centers, redevelopments

Cedar Realty Trust President and CEO Bruce Schanzer (Cedar)
Cedar Realty Trust President and CEO Bruce Schanzer (Cedar)

A Long Island-based REIT is looking into strategic alternatives for its business, including a full sale of the company.

Cedar Realty Trust is focused on retail properties, a struggling asset class. In addition to a full sale, the company is also exploring selling its portfolio of shopping centers — the ones anchored by grocery stores — and mixed-use redevelopment projects, according to Bloomberg. The grocery-anchored portfolio could fetch $965 million.

Shares in Cedar have more than tripled in the past year as the REIT has looked to take advantage of the strong asset-sale market. Earlier this year, the firm sold a shopping center in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, for $90 million.

Headquartered in Massapequa, the company has many holdings in the tri-state area, Boston and Washington, D.C. The REIT focuses on ownership and redevelopment of grocery store-anchored shopping centers in “dense urban markets.”

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Cedar Realty Trust has explored the possibility of a sale before. In 2017, S&P Global reported that Cedar’s board of directors rejected an unsolicited merger proposal from Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust. The board said the deal was not in the “best interest” of shareholders.

Cedar counts 9 million square feet among its portfolio.

Read more

[Bloomberg] — Holden Walter-Warner