Executive Summary

In this report, we examine recent consolidation among retail real estate companies.

• In the past few months, two major mall operators in the US have received acquisition offers from large commercial property firms.
• Unibail-Rodamco offered to acquire Westfield in December 2017 and Brookfield Property Partners offered to acquire GGP in March 2018.
• Mall property firms have been trading at a discount relative to past years, which may be prompting investors to buy shares in these firms.
• We think that the ongoing transformation in the shopping center offering is one factor that is contributing to consolidation among retail real estate firms.