Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT, Inc. (GCEAR) is a publicly registered non-traded REIT with a portfolio that currently includes 76 office and industrial distribution properties totaling approximately 19.1 million rentable square feet.
GCEAR's sponsor is Griffin Capital Corporation (Griffin Capital), a privately-owned real estate company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Led by senior executives with more than two decades of real estate experience collectively encompassing over $22 billion of transaction value and more than 650 transactions, Griffin Capital and its affiliates have acquired or constructed approximately 53.5 million square feet of space since 1995. Griffin Capital and its affiliates own, manage, sponsor and/or co-sponsor a portfolio consisting of approximately 36.6 million square feet of space, located in 29 states, and 0.1 million square feet in the United Kingdom, representing approximately $6.3 billion in asset value, based on purchase price.
Merger of Public Non-Traded REITs
On June 11, 2015, GCEAR acquired Signature Office REIT, Inc. (“SOR”), which converted each issued and outstanding share of SOR’s common stock via merger into 2.04 shares of GCEAR’s common stock. As part of the merger, GCEAR acquired a real estate portfolio comprised of 15 buildings located on 13 properties, encompassing over 2.6 million square feet, situated across eight states.
- Merger valued at $607 million
- GCEAR issued merger consideration of 41,764,969 shares of common stock, as merger consideration, registered on a Registration Statement on Form S-4