Kimco Realty To Acquire Partner's Stake In 39-Property Kimstone Portfolio

(RTTNews) - Kimco Realty Corp. (KIM) announced that its subsidiary has executed a contract to acquire the remaining 66.667% interest in the 39-property Kimstone portfolio from its joint venture partner, a subsidiary of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII or BREP for a price of $925 million, which includes the assumption of about $426.7 million in mortgage debt.

The company said it will pay about $512.3 million to acquire BREP's interest.

Kimco stated that it will use a combination of proceeds from recently completed and pending property sales in the U.S. and as well as availability under its existing $1.75 billion revolving credit facility to fund this transaction which is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2015. Upon closing, Kimco will own 100% of the portfolio.

The portfolio, which consists of 39 high-quality properties totaling 5.6 million square feet, is approximately 97% occupied and is comprised of a balance between well-located, grocery-anchored shopping centers and dominant power centers in strong demographic areas that have high barriers to entry.

Kimco noted that the portfolio also includes four signature assets namely, 280 Metro Center, Airport Plaza, Dulles Town Crossing and Stafford Marketplace.

With this acquisition, Kimco continues to advance its simplification goals that include reducing the number of properties in joint ventures, while adding high-quality retail assets to its wholly owned portfolio. In addition to the pending Kimstone transaction, to date during 2014 the company has acquired the remaining interests in 33 properties from its joint venture partners at a pro-rata amount of $697.6 million.