MINOT, N.D., Sept. 2, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Investors Real Estate Trust (Nasdaq:IRET) (Nasdaq:IRETP) announced today that on September 1, 2011 its operating partnership, IRET Properties, completed the acquisition of a senior housing portfolio comprised of seven properties located in Idaho for a total purchase price of $33.8 million. The portfolio consists of seven buildings with approximately 261 units totaling 149,744 square feet, with two properties each in Boise and Meridian, and one each in American Falls, Soda Springs and Eagle, Idaho. IRET will lease each of the new properties to a subsidiary affiliate of Edgewood Vista, an operator of senior living communities in the upper Midwest with which IRET has had a long-standing business relationship. The Company placed mortgage debt of $9.5 million on these properties on September 1, 2011, and currently expects to close on an additional $6.6 million in mortgage loans by the end of September 2011.
IRET additionally announced that it has signed a lease with a Connecticut-based energy company for approximately 20,000 square feet in its approximately 59,827-square foot Gateway Corporate Center located in Woodbury, MN. The lease has an initial term of seven years, commencing September 1, 2011. Following this transaction, the Company's Gateway Corporate Center is approximately one-third leased.
Separately, the Company announced that its Board of Trustees has declared a regular quarterly distribution of 13.00 cents per share/unit payable on October 3, 2011 to common shareholders and unitholders of record at the close of business on September 12, 2011. The distribution reinvestment price will be the volume weighted average price on October 3, 2011, less a discount of 5%. The Company has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to register the number of common shares necessary to meet distribution reinvestment elections.
This 13.00 cents per common share/unit distribution represents the 162nd consecutive quarterly distribution paid by IRET since its inception in 1970. The previous regular quarterly distribution, of 17.15 cents per common share/unit, was paid July 1, 2011. During the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, the Company announced that its Board of Trustees had approved a plan recommended by Company management to reduce the Company's quarterly distribution to 13.00 cents per common share and limited partnership unit from its former level of 17.15 cents per share/unit, effective with the quarterly distribution planned for October 3, 2011. The Company stated at that time that the Board intended to maintain this level of cash distribution for at least the next four quarters and anticipated growing the distribution over time in line with FFO growth. All future distributions remain subject to the discretion of the Company's Board of Trustees.
Investors Real Estate Trust's Board of Trustees also declared today a distribution of 51.56 cents per share on the Company's Series A Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Shares (Nasdaq:IRETP). This distribution will be payable September 30, 2011 to Series A preferred shareholders of record on September 15, 2011.
About Investors Real Estate Trust
Investors Real Estate Trust is an equity real estate investment trust. Its business consists of owning and operating income-producing multi-family residential and commercial properties located primarily in the upper Midwest. Investors Real Estate Trust is based in Minot, North Dakota, and has additional offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Omaha, Nebraska.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from projected results. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, but are not limited to: the availability of expected mortgage loans, fluctuations in interest rates, the effect of government regulations, the availability of capital, changes in general and local economic and real estate market conditions, competition, our ability to attract and retain skilled personnel, and those risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 2011 Form 10-K. We assume no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events.