Blackstone’s Plan to Take ACC Private
April 20, 2022 | Gail Kalinoski | Multi-Housing News
In 2004, American Campus Communities became the first publicly traded student housing company. In recent years, it has been the lone student housing REIT as the company led by Founder & CEO Bill Bayless grew to own 166 properties with approximately 111,900 beds and own and manage a total of 203 properties with about 140,900 beds. ACC is soon expected to go private as part of the U.S. student housing platform of global investment giant Blackstone.
In a blockbuster deal announced Tuesday, Blackstone affiliates entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ACC in an all-cash deal that values the student housing company at $12.8 billion. The Blackstone vehicles, consisting primarily of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) and Blackstone Property Partners (BPP), will pay $65.47 per fully diluted share, including the assumption of debt. The transaction, which needs shareholder approval, is expected to close by the third quarter.
In a letter to ACC employees, Bayless described going private as “the right strategic decision.” He noted that in the past five years the public equity markets have “been quite cyclical and at times our public cost of equity has been more expensive than private institutional capital.” Bayless stated that during those periods many of the REIT’s private peers were able to “execute entrepreneurially in the areas of acquisitions and off-campus development, more aggressively than our cost of public equities permitted.”
