Cousins Properties Inc, a major Real Estate Investment Trust based in Atlanta, has agreed to purchase a large portfolio of office properties in Texas for around$1.1 billion in an effort to expand its business. The portfolio includes 5.3 million square feet of commercial office space, according to several media reports.
According to Bloomberg, Cousins will be acquiring Greenway Plaza in Houston, a 4.4 million square feet business park which consists of 10 office buildings and 777 Main Street, a 980,000 square feet tower in Fort Worth. The company will sell 60 of its company shares to fund the deal. The amount is estimated to be something around $1.1 billion.
It currently owns five properties in Texas. The acquisition deal is slated to close by September 2013. Larry Gellerstedt, president and CEO of Cousins Properties says that the buildings are "high-quality urban properties...with future development potential."
"Not only do we expect this transaction to be transformative and accretive, it immediately expands our Texas platform and provides substantial geographic diversification at a significant discount to replacement cost," Gellerstedt added in a statement.
Currently, Cousin's market value stands at around $1.28 billion. It will be holding a conference call Tuesday, July 30 to discuss its second quarter earnings. On Monday, the company declared its Fund from Operations (FFO) "improved to $14.2 million or $0.12 per share from $13.2 million or $0.13 per share in the comparable quarter last year," reports NASDAQ.
The office property market of Houston has been mapping a steady growth. According to data from Real Capital Analytics Inc, sales of office space in the city went up 32 percent to $3.89 billion, the highest in the past five years. In another report of office property trends in Houston, it was revealed that the total asking prices per square feet was around $118. Read more on the market trends of Texas, here.
