Bank of America considering selling real estate to Blackstone Group

Bank of America is reported to be in talks with Blackstone Group LP discussing the possible selling of real estate investments held by its Merrill Lynch unit to the financial advisory firm for $1 billion. The investments include properties in Europe, the United States and South America.

According to The Financial Times, the portfolio of investments contains real estate debt and equity positions including non-performing loans in Italy and a Brazilian housing developer. If the transaction was successful, Bank of America would complete the selling off of real estate investments composed of private equity and investments made by the bank's own capital that many financial institutions are disposing of.

Despite recent efforts to sell noncore assets to improve its balance sheet, Bank of America's stock fell 25.7 percent over the last month due to nervous investors removing their funds, The New York Times reported. The news source said Blackstone reported $7.4 billion in uninvested capital available as of Jun 30 that it plans to use in raising its real estate fund.

Bloomberg reported that Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has sold assets to First Republic Bank and stock in BlackRock Inc in an effort to focus on corporate borrowers, investment banking and U.S. retail clients.  

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