Kimco Realty To Buy Partner's 66.7% Stake In Kimstone Portfolio

(RTTNews) - Real estate investment trust Kimco Realty Corp. (KIM, KIM-PG) said Friday that it has agreed to acquire the remaining 66.7 percent stake in the 39-property Kimstone portfolio from its joint venture partner Blackstone Group L.P. (BX) in a deal valued at $925 million, including the assumption of about $426.7 million in mortgage debt.

New York-based Kimco Realty will pay about $512.3 million to acquire its partner Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII or BREP's interest in the joint venture. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2015.

Kimco Realty will use proceeds from its recently completed and pending property sales in the U.S. and Latin America as well as availability under its existing $1.75 billion revolving credit facility to fund this transaction. Upon closing, Kimco Realty will own 100 percent of the portfolio.

The Kimstone portfolio, which consists of 39 properties totaling 5.6 million square feet, is about 97 percent occupied. The properties in the portfolio are concentrated in the core markets of New York, Virginia, Texas, Florida, California, and Maryland.

Kimco Realty noted that the three-mile average household income level of $92,000 and an average base rent per square foot of $15.83, both exceed the company's current portfolio average.

The portfolio includes four signature assets - 280 Metro Center in the San Francisco Bay Area of California; Airport Plaza in the Long Island community of Framingdale, New York; and Dulles Town Crossing as well as Stafford Marketplace, both in Virginia.

With this acquisition, Kimco Realty continues to advance on its plan to reduce the number of properties in joint ventures, while adding retail assets to its wholly-owned portfolio.

In addition to this pending transaction, to date during 2014, Kimco Realty has acquired the remaining interests in 33 properties from its joint venture partners at a pro-rata amount of $697.6 million.

KIM is trading at $25.43, up $0.04 or 0.16 percent on a volume of 39,566 shares.