The largest leveraged buyout in history was made by Blackstone Group, a private investment firm, in their acquistion of Equity Office Properties Trust (EOP), the nation's largest office-building owner and manager for a record $36 billion.
The deal surpasses the $33 billion paid for H.C.A., the hospital chain, earlier this year. Private equity firms continue to gobble up corporate America, according to this NYTimes.com article. Private equity firms are in a buying frenzy with the recent purchase of Clear Channel by a team of private equity firms, as the most recent example.
Sam Zell, a real estate tycoon, built the business through dozens of acquisitions including the purchase of the Verizon Building on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan for $515 million. Zell, one of the richest men in America, owns more real estate than Donald Trump and will be able to cash out part of his empire with this sale. Zell made his first millions in the 1970's buying distressed real estate and this sale my signal his believe that the market may have peaked.
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