{"id":41223,"date":"2016-09-22T16:06:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T20:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=41223"},"modified":"2016-09-22T16:06:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T20:06:04","slug":"lennar-to-buy-wci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2016\/09\/lennar-to-buy-wci\/","title":{"rendered":"Lennar To Buy WCI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"AP is reporting that Lennar will spend $643 million to acquire Bonita Springs-based luxury homebuilder WCI Communities Inc., tying up two of the largest home construction companies in Florida as the U.S. real estate market continues to heat up.<\/p>\n

Despite the monthly decline reported this week by the Commerce Department, construction activity has accelerated for much this year. Builders are increasingly optimistic about sales growth, a reflection of how steady job gains are leading more Americans to purchase new houses and sign leases for new apartments.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Miami-based Lennar reported a 5 percent jump in third-quarter profit and its revenue continues to rise as it delivers more homes.<\/p>\n

Deliveries climbed 7 percent to 6,779 homes, while new orders rose 8 percent to 7,018 homes. Lennar also said that there was a 3 percent increase in the average sales price of homes delivered.<\/p>\n

The deal, for $23.50 per share, marks a 37 percent premium to WCI\u2019s closing price Wednesday. It will be half in cash and half in Lennar stock.<\/p>\n

The boards of both companies have approved the deal.\u00a0WCI has a 35-day \u201cgo-shop\u201d period in which it will solicit and evaluate potential alternative offers, according to\u00a0The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

The deal is subject to approval by WCI stockholders. A vote is expected to occur in December or January, the Journal said.<\/p>\n

Shares of WCI rose 41 percent in morning trading to $24.19 and Lennar shares rose 2 percent to $44.35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AP is reporting that Lennar will spend $643 million to acquire Bonita Springs-based luxury homebuilder WCI Communities Inc., tying up two of the largest home construction companies in Florida as… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}