Largest Investor
Winner:
Arden Realty Inc.
$442 million
Runners-Up:
Douglas Emmett Realty Advisors
$228.5 million
Spieker Properties
$160.2 million
An acquisition spree of 31 office properties helped Beverly Hills-based Arden Realty Inc. garner the title of largest investor for 1997.
Arden, the real estate investment trust that acquires, owns, leases and manages commercial property, invested $442 million for acquisitions totaling 3.2 million square feet.
Arden’s high-profile purchases included a 75 percent interest in Brentwood’s 25-story World Savings Center for $483.2 million. Arden also retained an option to purchase the remaining 25 percent interest, which would make the World Savings Center the company’s single largest acquisition.
Arden has kicked off 1998 on an even larger scale. On March 3, Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Ziman announced the completion of a deal that boosted Arden’s portfolio by over 34 percent.
Arden acquired the holdings of Layton-Belling & Associates, a Newport Beach-based company, for $614.5 million. The portfolio consists of 50 properties that total 5.2 million square feet throughout Southern California. Arden’s portfolio now contains 16.1 million square feet.
“It is doubtful that we’ll match this rate of growth again, but we will selectively continue to buy in the marketplace,” said Arden President and Chief Operating Officer Victor Coleman.
Arden also is active in the property management side, having conducted over 300 lease transactions for more than 1 million square feet in 1997.
Arden is the brainchild of Ziman, who was involved in the meteoric ’80s real estate scene while heading Beverly Hills-based Pacific Financial Group. After seeing values steadily rise, he grew wary and sold off nearly all the holdings before the market’s collapse.
By 1991, Ziman reentered the market by creating Arden Realty, which went public in October 1996, and has since gone through two secondary public offerings.
Arden operates solely in Southern California because the company knows its own back yard and is able to keep expenses down by managing local properties. But Arden is open to expanding beyond the Southern California market.
“We will continue to concentrate on (Southern California), but we won’t turn a blind eye to other opportunities that arise elsewhere,” Coleman said.
Sara Fisher
