Brookfield Office Properties (BPO.TO)

Owns a little bit of this and is looking at it more seriously. The Brookfield group has done an excellent job. Have had some consolidation in terms of putting their property funds together. Very good managers. You get a bit of yield, but also have some positive prospects. This is a worldwide organization.

Being acquired by Brookfield Property Partners (BPY.UN-T). He is waiting for an independent study before deciding if he wants to roll the holdings BPY shares, or whether to take cash.

(A Top Pick Nov 15/12. Up 31.53%.) (Being acquired by Brookfield Property Partners (BPY.UN-T).) A high quality portfolio of assets. Continues to trade at a discount to NAV. If you own, you will be getting BPY stock and he thinks NAV is closer to $23.

Now being bought by the parent company with an offer of around $19. This group of companies are great if you want to have a piece of the real estate side. If you own, he would take the LP stock, but the $19 is not a bad investment either.

Brookfield Property Partners (BPY-N) have made an offer to buy the balance of shares. What should he do? It depends on what type of the exposure you want. If you like the Brookfield subs than he would roll his shares into BPY. If you have made a nice gain, half the time you should take the money and run and think about where else you could put the money to work. This transaction will take a long time to close and will be a very complicated one.

This is a stock that has moved sideways for quite some time. There was a lot of pessimism related to short-term prospects for releasing the New York property and he thinks that has been overly emphasized. Very good growth prospects, both in Britain and North America. Dividend yield of 3.4%. His target is close to $20.

(Market Call Minute.) Buy this if you are going to be patient. There are ongoing concerns about leasing in downtown Manhattan.

(A Top Pick July 23/12. Up 3.99%.) This is still one of the core holdings for him in his real estate fund. A lot of their real estate is in the US and occupancy is about 85%. Has a lot of room to run. Trading at about 20% plus discount to NAV.

4% bond due April 6/18. (All 3 Top Picks are based on a strategy that will earn you something without endangering your principal. Yield curve is very steep so when buying a 4 year bond, in 3 years you are one year closer to maturity and obviously less price risk and the yield has fallen and you have a capital gain. Corporate spreads from governments are fan shaped so the longer you go the wider the spread. As you come down a curve, this will trade at a tighter spread as well as a lower yield so you get a double effect of the yield curve and the credit spread.) Likes this company itself. Merrill Lynch is leaving their offices in Manhattan leaving a big dent in their portfolio which may take a year or 2 to fill. But they have high quality portfolio and the company is in very good shape.

(Top Pick Jul 23/12, Up 3.33%) Net asset value is about $21. Hold office properties around the world. Pristine buildings. High quality portfolio. Rate hikes won’t affect them much. Not much debt coming up for renewal in the near term. Occupancy is 85% in US but 90-95% in Canada.

Getting a huge overhang from the leasing that is coming up in lower Manhattan in the World Trade Center space. Quality of properties is second to none. Will overcome the overhang. Discount to NAV.

Has been reducing his exposure a little and moving a lot more money to the US as the Canadian market is underperforming. He has focused on things like Ventas (VTR-N) a healthcare REIT. Has also focused a little bit more on industrial REITs which have a little bit better power to raise rents. This one has great A1 properties but he would prefer the industrials.

Good REIT with a lot of exposure in the US, Australia and some in London. Real story is that as the US economy continues to improve, they should be able to realize an uplift in occupancy and rents. Reporting tomorrow. Use any weakness as an opportunity to accumulate. Trades at a substantial discount to NAV. He pegs NAV at about $20. Dividend yield of 3.36%. P/E ratio of 7.7%.

In Canada we are almost fully occupied in city cores but there is 16% vacancy in US cities. This will force rents up. Working on a major tenant lease renewal at present. When this BAC-N lease renews the overhang on the stock will disappear. It may be announced in 6 months.

Parent is creating a new company where they will spin out a bunch of their companies' shares into the one unit. At some point down here it will be a good buy.