Commercial Real Estate Finance

Posts Tagged ‘Corrections Corp.’

Week in Review for April 7 – 13:

- Washington, D.C.-based alternatives manager Carlyle Group prepares for an IPO, which Reuters predicts could fetch as much as $800 million. The initial public offering would bring 10% of its management company to the public.

-  The first quarter of 2012 saw a decline in U.S. CRE demand. However, analysts point out, diminishing inventory has softened the impact of this decline.

- After years of growth, big-box stores are losing their appeal for many retailers. This is a consequence of increasing online shopping, which has forced the closures of Circuit City and, more recently, Sears, Kmart, and Best Buy locations. Even retail giants like Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT) are moving toward smaller-scale retail stores.

- In Washington, D.C., upgrades to Union Station are expected to benefit the area’s nearby commercial tenants.

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It seems my posts have been dominated by talk of REITs for some time now. To be sure, it’s hard to discuss the commercial real estate world without bringing up REITs, whose deep pockets and investor-friendly structure give them a great deal of clout. Their acquisitions and investment strategies maintain a consistently high profile in investment news. But since I have already (however belatedly) declared the current period the “Era of the REIT,” I don’t need to make my case again.

What I want to explore is the growing interest in converting to a REIT structure among non-traditional real estate companies. I’m not just talking about the self-storage REITs, such as Public Storage (PSA), who’ve enjoyed a great deal of prosperity since the spate of home foreclosures and the growth of multifamily. Nor am I talking about timber companies like Weyerhaeuser (WY), which became a REIT a little over a year ago and has since spoken glowingly of its new, tax-advantaged status.  Read the rest of this entry »