LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Colony Capital, Inc. (NYSE: CLNY) announced today it has completed the sale of NorthStar Realty Europe Corp. (NYSE: NRE), a REIT managed by the Company, to AXA Investment Managers – Real Assets (“AXA IM – Real Assets”). The definitive agreement for NRE to be acquired was announced on July 3, 2019 and approved by NRE’s stockholders on September 25, 2019.
Together with the agreement announced earlier today to sell Colony Industrial to Blackstone Real Estate Partners for $5.9 billion, the Company will be monetizing approximately $7.5 billion in assets as it generates liquidity as part of its transition to focus on digital real estate and infrastructure.
In conjunction with the NRE transaction, Colony received $64.6 million in a lump sum incentive and termination fee payment and $96 million for its 11% ownership position in NRE representing a premium of approximately $22 million, or 30%, above Colony’s cost basis.
“The Colony team led by Mahbod Nia has done a tremendous job in stewarding NRE's high-quality European assets and managing a very challenging process which has concluded with a win for all parties. The closing of this transaction represents another great milestone of accomplishment for our strategy to arbitrage public and private markets, and simplify our story and balance sheet, and we plan on using the proceeds from this transaction to continue to right-size our capital structure and invest in digital growth businesses as we transform into the leading operator, investment manager, and capital provider in the digital infrastructure industry,” said Thomas J. Barrack, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Colony.
About Colony Capital
Colony Capital, Inc. (NYSE: CLNY) is a leading global investment management firm with assets under management of $53 billion, which includes approximately $14 billion of assets under management from Digital Bridge, a leading global investment manager of digital infrastructure assets including cell towers, small cells, fiber and data centers. The Company manages capital on behalf of its stockholders, as well as institutional and retail investors in private funds, and traded and non-traded real estate investment trusts. The Company has significant holdings in: (a) the healthcare, industrial and hospitality property sectors; (b) Colony Credit Real Estate, Inc. (NYSE: CLNC), which is externally managed by a subsidiary of the Company; and (c) various other equity and debt investments. The Company is headquartered in Los Angeles with key offices in Boca Raton, New York, Paris and London, and has over 450 employees across 21 locations in 13 countries as a result of the business combination with Digital Bridge. For additional information regarding the Company and its management and business, please refer to www.clny.com.
