The Year in Real Estate Mergers
It's no stretch to call 2014 the year of the mega merger, with staggering deals announced that include Actavis' $66B Allergan buy, AT&T's $48.5B acquisition of DirectTV and the $45B sale of Time Warner Cable to Comcast.
There was also a series of smaller, but pivotal, real estate M&As that will continue to shake up brokerages and markets well into next year.
Here are a few of the biggest.
The price: $3.5B in stock
The scoop: These rival residential listings sites brought in a combined 140M monthly unique visitors (supposedly with little overlap) before joining forces in a deal announced in July and expected to close next year. For now, the Federal Trade Commission is investigating to see if the marquee merger violates antitrust laws. Its decision will be a bellwether of whether the FTC considers online and non-digital home sales-ad as separate entities.
The price: $1.1B
The scoop: Private equity firms TPG closed this billion dollar baby in November, months after it had hoped to seal the deal. Terms called for TPG to invest in DTZ, a global brokerage that would remain a stand-alone firm. Meanwhile, TPG's concurrent, roughly $500M Cassidy Turley buy will create a company with nearly $3B in revenue and potentially lead to a flood of high-profile poaches as the new firm joins the ranks of JLL and CBRE.
The price: $260M in cash and stock
The scoop: London-based Savills announced its acquisition of the New York tenant rep specialist at the close of last year (the transaction closed in May), broadening Studley's scope and bringing Savills to Time Warner, a Studley client involved in a 1M SF relocation to Hudson Yards prompted by its own high profile merger, to Comcast. Studley's Mitch Steir remained CEO and chair of Savills Studley.
The price: $100M
The scoop: C&W reportedly beat out CBRE and DTZ in its purchase of New York-based investment sales and mortgage brokerage Massey Knakal, which has become a dominant player in the $1M to $100M property sector. The deal is expected to close on New Year's Eve, giving C&W Massey Knakal in its entirety after investment firm had pondered selling a 49% stake.
