Topic: How To Invest

Pat: Could you comment on Brookfield Office Properties?

Article Excerpt

Brookfield Office Properties Inc., $17.27, symbol BPO on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 504.7 million; Market cap: $8.7 billion; www.brookfieldofficeproperties.com), owns office buildings in the downtown cores of New York, Houston, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., in the U.S.; Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary in Canada; Sydney, Melbourne and Perth in Australia; and London, England. In all, these holdings consist of 110 properties with 76 million square feet of leasable area. Its occupancy rate is 92.0%. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (Toronto symbol BAM) owns 51% of the company. In the three months ended December 31, 2012, Brookfield’s revenue rose 13.5%, to $579 million from $510 million a year earlier. That’s mainly due to acquisitions and the June 2012 opening of Brookfield Place Perth, a 953,000-square-foot office/retail complex in Perth, Australia. Cash flow per share rose 15.4%, to $0.30 from $0.26. The stock trades at 14.6 times Brookfield’s forecast 2013 cash flow of $1.18 a share. The company pays quarterly dividends of $0.14 a share…