Equity Residential, the apartment company headed by real-estate mogul Sam Zell, has emerged as the lead bidder to buy roughly half of rival Archstone.
Equity Residential has offered more than $2.5 billion in cash and stock to buy the 53 percent equity stake in Arapahoe County-based Archstone currently held by Bank of America Corp. and Barclays PLC, according to people familiar with the situation. An agreement still is uncertain, and a higher bidder could step in.
The rest of the company is owned by the bankruptcy estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings, which led a group that purchased Archstone in 2007 and is keeping its holding. Lehman and the banks earlier this year disagreed over how to unwind Archstone, leading the banks to put their stakes up for sale.
The bid from Zell is the latest sign of the high level of interest among investors in rental apartments. While other forms of commercial property have suffered from high vacancy rates, apartment buildings have enjoyed high demand as home ownership rates have fallen. Wall Street Journal
