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Brookfield Property jumps most in two years on asset-sale plans

For sale: Brookfield is looking to sell its stake in London's 99 Bishopsgate office building

TORONTO (Bloomberg) — Bermuda-domiciled Brookfield Property Partners LP climbed the most in two years after the landlord said it’s in the process of selling multi-family, industrial and office assets, taking advantage of strong investor demand for real estate.

The company is in advanced talks to sell an interest in London’s 99 Bishopsgate office tower and a Toronto property, part of about $300 million of assets for sale, executives said on their second-quarter conference call. Brookfield also is seeking to sell some multi-family and industrial properties later this year and in early 2016, they said.

“There’s no shortage of interest from institutional and sovereign wealth funds so we think it’s a good time to recycle capital out of mature stabilised assets” and raise money for acquisitions, chief executive officer Ric Clark said on the call yesterday. “We’re capitalising on that.”

Brookfield Property increased 5.2 per cent to $21.30 at 1.41pm in New York trading. The shares rose as much as 5.4 per cent earlier yesterday, the biggest intraday increase since April 2013.

Brookfield has the majority of its invested capital in office buildings, at $19.1 billion. Retail real estate accounts for $9.23 billion, and other opportunistic assets, including multi-family and industrial properties, total $1.74 billion, according to company financial supplements.

“We’re at the stage where we’re starting to focus on harvesting our investments,” Clark said. “Expect in the near term we’ll start to do that and pick up the pace over the next couple of years.”

Brookfield executives also said on the call that the company would begin buying back stock as soon as the quarter’s blackout period is lifted.