Blackstone in?

Okay, now things get serious on the GGP front. (IIRC, this was also brought up in February, so have they been doing due diligence all this time?) And people on Wacker Drive may not be thrilled because they know or at least think having the guys from Indy and their hedge funds looking over their shoulders does not bode well over the long term.  And that assumes they don't buy the company. According to Bloomberg Businessweek:

Blackstone’s “No. 1 focus has been on being our partner if we’re able to buy the company,” Simon said from the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California. “But I think they are considering whether they want to buy some stock as part of a recap as well.”

The latest recap offer apparently keeps Simon below 20% voting rights. I'm not sure that matters. They would be in the game.

All this bargaining does not mean the sector is out of the woods.  The WSJ sort of reminds us of that today in this story of REIT stocks going up even though there is a lot of debt to structure.. GGP is unique in that is has trophy mall assets that can't be easily replicated. So the next move is?

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