The Wall Street Journal wrote a story on an interesting nugget that came up during the company's second quarter earnings call. The firm has had to modify its pending acquisition of Prime Outlets reportedly to ease antitrust concerns from the Federal Trade Commission. It has removed three properties and $700 million from the deal.
Mr. Simon declined to give the specifics of why the three properties noware being excluded or how the details of the deal have changed due to the reduced number of centers.However, a person familiar with the talks said the omissions are being made to mollify the FTC.
Adding Prime's 21 centers, less the three now excluded, would cement Simon's dominance of the outlet-center market, giving it a total of 63 outlet properties. That is twice as many as No. 2 outlet-center operator Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc.
The three properties that now will remain with Lightstone rather than going to Simon are the Prime Outlets in St. Augustine, Fla., and two development sites in Grand Prairie, Texas, and Livermore Valley, Calif. Lightstone will retain and develop the properties.
"U.S. antitrust authorities have consistently recognized that the retail industry is highly competitive and fragmented," Simon said Friday.
Aside from that, here's a host of other news stories and blog entries from late last week and over the weekend.
- U.S. Commercial Property Deals May Slow, Inland's Cosenza Says (Bloomberg Business Week)
- Deutsche Bank Shutting Commercial Real Estate Adviser Group(Bloomberg)
- Retail Leasing Continues to Strengthen, But Investment Activity Remains Sluggish (CoStar)
- Regulatory Reform: What Impact Will It Have On Commercial Real Estate? (CoStar)
- FourSquare's Social Media Platform is Ideal for Shopping Centers (Places Magazine Blog)
- My Random Thoughts on Regulatory Reform (Dirt Lawyer's Blog)
- Second-Quarter Loan Originations Flat Year Over Year, Says MBA (NREI)
- The New Abnormal (Bloomberg Business Week)
- Barnes & Noble Planning Big Push to Increase Nook Sales (New York Times)
- Largest Private Equity Real Estate Funds to Close in Q2 2010 (Preqin)
- Winn-Dixie Reveals Stores Tabbed for Closure (Supermarket News)