Beverly Hills-based Arden Realty Inc. last week announced that it bought seven properties for a combined $188.4 million during the second quarter, bringing its year-to-date acquisition outlay to $245 million.
And the buying spree is far from over. Arden officials said late last week that they expected to complete a secondary stock offering of 10 million additional common shares by July 18.
Arden said in a statement that it plans to use the proceeds to complete the acquisition of nine more Southern California office properties and to repay debt. After the offering, it expects to have about 32 million outstanding shares.
Several top Arden officials were in New York last week as the first stop on a tour of more than a dozen cities to discuss the offering with U.S. and European institutional investors.
The company reported funds from operations (FFO) of $13.4 million (54 cents per share), for the quarter, compared with $13.1 million (53 cents) for the first quarter. The company also declared a quarterly dividend of 40 cents per share.
Arden, which went public late last year, did not report year-to-year comparisons.
Arden’s FFO results were on target with estimates from analysts, who typically gauge REIT financial performance according to FFO rather than net income because FFO is considered a more accurate measure of a REIT’s performance. FFO includes net income plus allowance for depreciation and amortization.
For the quarter, Arden reported revenues of $29.7 million, up from $24.9 million in the first quarter, and net income of $7.8 million, compared with $8.4 million.
Arden, led by CEO Richard Ziman and President Victor Coleman, is one of several publicly held REITs that have been buying up large numbers of commercial properties throughout Southern California in recent months.
Arden’s portfolio as of June 30 contained 45 properties containing 73 buildings with a combined 7.4 million square feet of space. Just since its initial public offering last October, Arden has acquired 21 properties in 12 different submarkets.
