Brookfield Office Properties has shuffled desks in its executive suite. Bloomberg News reported that the owners of World Financial Center and the developer of Manhattan West has promoted CEO Ric Clark to chairman and replaced him with co-President Dennis Friedrich. Tom Farley, Brookfield’s other co-president, will assume sole claim to the title. The move comes as Brookfield Office’s parent company, Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, prepares to publicly list its real estate business as Brookfield Property Partners.
Ric Clark will be CEO of that new company which will retain Brookfield Asset’s 50 percent stake in Brookfield Office Properties.
Meanwhile, in today’s first-quarter earning announcement, Brookfield Office said it leased 1.1 million square feet at a rental rate that was 33 percent greater than the rates of expiring leases. Those figures do not include the 1.2 million-square-foot agreement it struck with Morgan Stanley at One New York Plaza.
Its commercial property net operating income increased 44 percent year-over-year to $312 million, while its funds from operations increased 8.5 percent annually to $154 million. [Bloomberg]