Sam Zell's been wheeling and dealing this year, selling off chunks of the Equity Commonwealth portfolio. Now comes news he's shedding a sizable portion of his Equity Residential holdings to Starwood Capital in a $5.37B deal.
The deal reportedly affects 72 properties in five markets, totaling over 23,000 apartments. Equity Residential will use most of the sale's proceeds to pay shareholders a special dividend between $9 and $11, which they'll see in Q2 2016.
Equity Residential has a portfolio of over 109,000 units at the time of the sale. The deal, which is Starwood's largest non-hotel buy ever, averages out to $231k per unit. The deal will also keep Zell among the country's richest real estate moguls.
