Commercial Real Estate Direct Staff Report
Equity Commonwealth is looking to sell between $2 billion and $3 billion of properties in the coming three years as part of a broad portfolio repositioning.
Exactly how much it ends up selling depends on market conditions.
"There's a shortage of investible opportunities and if we get lucky, we're going to hit the high end of the range," explained Sam Zell, the company's chairman, who spoke on a recent conference call with analysts. "And if we don't get lucky, we'll hit the low end of the range."
Zell took the reigns of the Chicago REIT, previously known as CommonWealth REIT, after a proxy battle last year that resulted in the company's previous management and board being ousted. Since then, he and the company's senior executives have been completing a property-by-property review of the REIT's 156 properties. They've determined to streamline by selling its non-office holdings, smaller properties, those...

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