An affiliate of Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Advisors LLC said Monday it plans to start up a real estate investment trust that could raise $2.5 billion to buy office, industrial and retail buildings.
KBS Real Estate Investment Trust Inc. said it hopes to sell as many as 280 million shares of common stock for the REIT, at $10 a share.
Rather than raising cash through a typical initial public stock offering, KBS REIT’s securities will be sold by broker-dealers. Shares won’t trade publicly.
A minimum of 250,000 shares could be sold in the offering, which would value the deal at just $2.5 million.
The company plans to buy properties in large metropolitan areas in the U.S. It has not yet identified any specific properties to acquire.
KBS Capital Markets Group, another newly created affiliate of KBS Realty, is set to manage the REIT.
Greg Brakovich is chief executive of KBS Capital Markets Group. He previously served as the co-chief executive of MetLife Investors Group.
Also known as Koll Bren Schreiber Realty Advisors, KBS Realty is a venture of Peter Bren, Donald Bren’s brother, and former Koll Development Co. executive Chuck Schreiber Jr.
KBS Realty has been active in some big local real estate deals of late.
It sold the two 10-story buildings that hold the headquarters of chipmaker Conexant Systems Inc. and spinoff Mindspeed Technologies Inc. near John Wayne Airport in Newport Beach. The price: $136 million.
KBS Realty bought the towers just a year earlier. It sold for a big profit to real estate investor and coin dealer John Saunders.
Both Peter Bren, 72, and Schreiber, 54, will serve as senior officers for KBS REIT.
KBS REIT is the second big blind pool REIT offering of its type coming from Orange County.
In January, an apartment investment trust with ties to Santa Ana-based Triple Net Properties LLC said it was trying to raise $1 billion from investors.
That trust,NNN Apartment REIT, also in Santa Ana,filed plans to offer 200,000 to 105 million shares in its offering.
NNN Apartment plans to go after apartments in some U.S. markets, according to regulatory filings. The REIT’s adviser is a unit of Triple Net.
