Duke Realty Corporation Announces Acquisition of Bremner Healthcare Real Estate
Released: 12/6/2006
INDIANAPOLIS — Duke Realty Corporation (DRE:NYSE) (“Duke”) announced that it has agreed to acquire Bremner Healthcare Real Estate (“Bremner Healthcare”), a national healthcare development and management firm. The company will be known as Bremner-Duke Healthcare Real Estate (“Bremner-Duke”), and will operate as a separate division of Duke. Jim Bremner, Bremner Healthcare president and CEO, will join Bremner-Duke along with the company’s associates, and its management structure will remain intact. The acquisition, which does not require shareholder approval, is expected to close in January 2007.
In addition to the acquisition of Bremner Healthcare, Duke will acquire its remaining 50% interest in the healthcare properties currently owned by a joint venture formed by Duke and Bremner Healthcare in 2004. These properties consist of 784,000 square feet in nine projects throughout the United States. By combining these operations under Duke Realty Corporation, both parties believe that the growth opportunities available in the healthcare industry can be accelerated, and efficiencies can be realized through the combination of operating systems.
“Healthcare expenditures in the United States are expected to exceed $33 billion by 2010, a 50% increase over 2002,” said Denny Oklak, Duke’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Almost 35% of these expenditures will be for outpatient facilities such as medical office buildings, surgery centers, and clinics. The acquisition of Bremner Healthcare accelerates Duke’s national status in this dynamic and growing market.
“We are especially pleased that Jim Bremner will join Duke as president of Bremner-Duke Healthcare Real Estate Division,” Oklak continued. “Clients can look forward to the same high levels of service and expertise they have come to expect from Jim and his team.”
“The healthcare real estate industry has become more sophisticated over the past few years,” said Jim Bremner, president and CEO of Bremner Healthcare. “Combining Bremner with the Duke organization will allow us to serve our clients at a much higher level. Hospitals and physician groups throughout the country desire a partner with capital strength and local real estate expertise. Duke’s local presence in 19 cities provides us instant access to real estate professionals in the growing healthcare markets.”
Bremner Healthcare is one of the nation’s leading healthcare real estate firms, assisting hospital and physician groups in planning, leasing, developing, owning, and managing healthcare real estate. Bremner Healthcare currently manages over 3,500,000 square feet of healthcare facilities and has developed close to $1 billion in medical office buildings, outpatient surgery centers, oncology centers, orthopedic centers, wellness facilities, and specialty care hospitals.
Founded in 1972, Duke Realty Corporation develops commercial real estate in strategically selected markets by leveraging the expertise of local sales, construction and operations professionals. Duke is the largest publicly traded, vertically integrated office/industrial real estate company in the United States. Duke's properties encompass approximately 113 million rentable square feet leased by approximately 3,600 tenants. The corporation owns or controls more than 6,500 acres of undeveloped land that can support over 94 million square feet of additional development. Duke common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol: DRE.
When used in this news release, the words “believes,” “expects,” “estimates,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. In particular, among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are continued qualification as a real estate investment trust, general business and economic conditions, competition, increases in real estate construction costs, interest rates, accessibility of debt and equity capital markets and other risks inherent in the real estate business including tenant defaults, potential liability relating to environmental matters and liquidity of real estate investments. Readers are advised to refer to Duke's Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 6, 2006 for additional information concerning these risks.
Contact: Shona L. Bedwell | Email