From the Globe and Mail:
Hudson’s Bay Co., whose third-quarter loss widened, will consider spinning off its valuable real estate into a real estate investment trust, borrowing a page from the playbook of grocery giant Loblaw Cos. Ltd.
“We’ve always believed that some time in the future we could have the opportunity … to create a REIT, similar to what Loblaw is proposing,” Richard Baker, the U.S. real estate magnate who controls HBC and is its governor (chairman) and chief executive officer, told an analysts’ conference call on Tuesday morning.
“It’s nice to be invested in a retailer that owns a lot of real estate and the type of real estate we w own would fit very nicely into a REIT.”
HBC isn’t working on a REIT plan currently, he added. “But it is something we often talk about and foresee some day in the future getting more involved in. “ Last week, Loblaw unveiled its intention to unlock its real estate value by setting up a REIT by mid-2013, prompting the grocer’s share price to surge. Loblaw will keep a more than 80-per-cent stake in the real-estate company, which is expected to own about $7-billion worth of property, most of it housing its supermarkets.
