Covington Advises On Real Estate Asset Manager Merger Valued at $940 Million

NEW YORK—Covington advised Tetragon Financial Group Limited on the merger of its GreenOak Real Estate joint venture with Bentall Kennedy, Sun Life Financial Inc.’s  North American real estate and property management firm. The combined entities will be called Bentall GreenOak. Tetragon will remain an investor in Bentall GreenOak, which the merger values at $940 million.

As part of the merger, Sun Life Financial has agreed to contribute its interest in Bentall Kennedy and pay GreenOak shareholders $146 million in cash in exchange for a 56% interest in the combined entity of Bentall GreenOak.

The combined Bentall GreenOak investment platform will serve over 700 institutional clients with approximately $47 billion in assets under management. Bentall GreenOak will offer its clients a broad range of complementary real estate investment strategies that include Core, Core Plus, and Value Add/Opportunistic equity, as well as senior and tactical real estate debt strategies. 

The Covington team was led by J. D. Weinberg, Michael Reed, and Leonard Chazen and included Bill Sturman, Kelly Labritz, Ian Murray, and Jack Wickham (corporate), Daniel Luchsinger and Elnaz Manoucheri (tax), and Jenna Wallace and Brady McDaniel (benefits).