Reckson delays merger vote - Real estate company postpones decision on deal with SL Green Realty after investors offer higher bid
Reckson Associates Realty Corp., Long Island's largest
commercial landlord, said Friday it will postpone
its Nov. 22 shareholder vote on a merger with SL Green
Realty Corp. until Nov. 28 in light of a new, higher
bid by investors Carl Icahn and Harry Macklowe.
Rome Acquisition Lp, an entity formed by Macklowe
and Icahn, Thursday offered $49 per share in cash
for Reckson, or about $500 million more than SL Green's
$6-billion bid in the deal announced Aug. 3. The total
includes assumption of about $2 billion in debt.
Macklowe and Icahn said they were prepared to ink
a deal within 10 days, after a "due diligence"
review of Reckson's internal records. The Rome offer
would scuttle a deal to allow an investor group led
by chairman Scott Rechler to buy back $2.1 billion
in suburban assets, including many properties long
owned by Rechler family entities.
"We believe our proposed transaction is financially
superior to the pending transaction, and we are in
a position to consummate this transaction expeditiously,"
Macklowe and Icahn told Reckson in their letter offering
to buy the company.
Neither Rechler nor SL Green could be reached for
comment Friday. SL Green so far has not raised its
bid, as its merger agreement allows, but expressed
doubt Thursday about whether the Rome offer is "credible."
Icahn, who describes himself in the proposal letter
as "an accomplished value-oriented activist investor"
with controlling interests in a range of industries,
is worth an estimated $9.7 billion, according to Forbes
magazine.
Macklowe owns several million square feet of Manhattan
office space, including the General Motors Building
at 767 Fifth Ave.
At least two proxy-advisory services that had favored
the SL Green deal warned clients Thursday that they
might revise their recommendations.
On Monday, one of the class-action shareholder lawsuits
challenging the merger as a sweetheart deal is to
come before a State Supreme Court justice in Nassau.
