The Firm represents The Blackstone Group in its $5.6 billion acquisition of CarrAmerica Realty Corporation, a publicly traded real estate investment trust. CarrAmerica owns, develops and operates office properties in 12 markets throughout the United States. CarrAmerica and its affiliates own, directly or through joint ventures, interests in a portfolio of 285 operating office properties, totaling 26.3 million square feet.
This transaction is the largest buyout of a public real estate company. The transaction will be financed with $4.2 billion of mortgage and mezzanine financing. The proceeds of the financing, together with equity from Blackstone, will be used to pay the cash merger consideration and refinance existing indebtedness.
Qualified limited partners in CarrAmerica’s two “DownREIT” partnerships will be given the option to elect to receive preferred units in the surviving partnerships in lieu of the same cash merger consideration that will be paid to CarrAmerica’s common stockholders.
The Simpson Thacher team working on the transaction includes: Brian Stadler, Andrew Smith, Jason Cohen, Andra Behrouz and David King (M&A); Greg Ressa, Erik Quarfordt and Andrew Silverman (Real Estate); Andrew Keller and Marisa Stavenas (Capital Markets); John Hart, Tom Gray and Anne Goldstein (Tax); Andrew O’Brien (Employee Benefits); and Adeeb Fadil and Timothy Mulvihill (Environmental).