BRE Properties Announces Offering Of Common Stock 8M (BRE)

BRE Properties, Inc. BRE today announced that it will offer, subject to market and other conditions, 8,000,000 shares of its common stock in an underwritten registered offering. The company also plans to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,200,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any. Wells Fargo Securities and BofA Merrill Lynch will act as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering. The company expects to use the net proceeds from the offering to repay borrowings under its unsecured revolving credit facility and to redeem the outstanding shares of its 6.75% Series C Preferred Stock for an aggregate amount of approximately $100 million plus any accrued and unpaid dividends (which the company anticipates completing by June 30, 2011). The company intends to use any remaining net proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include funding of development activity, acquisitions of rental properties, and the redemption or other repurchase of outstanding equity or debt securities.