Lehman’s Archstone to raise $100m in IPO

Archstone Inc, the apartment owner and developer owned by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, filed with US regulators on Friday to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering. The company owns or has an interest in 181 US apartment communities with 59,419 units, according to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Archstone’s core holdings are in Washington, DC, Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Boston, Seattle and Southeast Florida. The company also owns apartments in Germany. Archstone has been cited as one as the primary causes behind Lehman’s historic failure. Lehman and Tishman Speyer acquired publicly traded Archstone Smith, one of the largest owners of US apartments, through a $23.7 billion leveraged buyout in 2007. Lehman, Bank of America Corp and Barclays Plc provided $6.4 billion in secured financing with Lehman contributing 47 per cent, or more than $3 billion. As real estate values fell and credit began to dry up, Archstone could not repay some of its loans. Its lenders ended up with the company in 2010, with Lehman owning 47.3 per cent and the banks a combined 53 per cent.  As apartment values rebounded, Lehman had wanted to spin-off Archstone in an IPO, but the banks balked. Instead, the two banks wanted to sell there stakes to Equity Residential. The fight ended after Lehman bought out the banks’ ownership in two separate transactions for about $2.98 billion. The entire two-step deal was completed in June. From:Gulftoday