Mergers & Acquisitions

Evergreen Park, Ill. — Cole Real Estate Investments has acquired a 49,225-sq.-ft. portion of the 450,000-sq.-ft. Evergreen Marketplace in Evergreen Park, Ill., for $9.9 million. Mid-America Real Estate Corporation represented the seller, Sterling Bay Companies.

The center is located just north of the northwest corner of Western Avenue & 95th Street in the near Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park. Meijer, Menards, Michaels and Ross Dress for Less. Cole purchased the portion featuring Michaels and Ross.

Greenwood Village, Colo. — Maui Wowi Hawaiian plans to open a shop in Northwoods Mall in Peoria, Ill. Slated to open in early October, the new Maui Wowi franchise shop will continue the brand’s expansion in Illinois.

Maui Wowi currently has more than 450 operating units in seven countries.

Benicia, Calif. – Cycle Gear, Inc. has opened its first Indiana store on East 82nd Street in Indianapolis, near the Castleton Square Mall.

Cycle Gear will host a grand opening celebration weekend Sept. 20-22. Indianapolis is the latest in a recent run of store openings in the Midwest for Cycle Gear. The retailer, with more than 100 locations in 30 states, opened two stores in the Chicago area and one near Milwaukee earlier in the year.

New York -- Steven Roth, chairman and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, resigned from the board of J.C. Penney as company plans to sell its stake in the chain.

In a filing on Friday, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Vornado said it will exit Penney in the “not-too-distant future. The company owns about 6.1% of Penney’s shares.

Vornado Realty Trust chairman and CEO Steven Roth has resigned from J.C. Penney’s board of directors, according to a Reuters report. 

The article went on to say that Vornado, which owns office buildings and retail properties in New York and Washington, took a 9.9% stake in Penney at the same time that Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management bought a 16.5% stake in 2010 to push for big changes at the company.

San Francisco – Twitter publicly announced its intention to file for an IPO with a tweet yesterday afternoon.

“We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO,” stated the tweet. “This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.”

Boston — A group of private equity companies, including Advent International and CDIB Capital, have joined together to acquire a significant equity position in International Coffee & Tea, which owns and operates stores under The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf banner, with an eye on expanding in Asia. Other investors participating in the transaction include Mirae Asset Private Equity and the Sassoon family (the latter is the largest existing shareholder of The Coffee Bean, and is remaining as a substantial shareholder).

Bi-Lo Holdings and Harris Teeter announced plans to acquire select Piggly Wiggly-branded stores. Bi-Lo plans to acquire 22 Piggly Wiggly stores in South Carolina and coastal Georgia. Harris Teeter plans to purchase six locations and a future store location in the Charleston, S.C., area.