Case Study
April 5, 2017

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Goodwin represented the underwriters in the $1.8 billion initial public offering of Invitation Homes, the second-largest REIT IPO ever, behind Goodwin client Paramount Group’s REIT IPO in 2014.

CHALLENGE

When Invitation Homes sought to go public, its syndicate of underwriters included 17 banks in need of representation for the REIT’s massive initial public offering.

OUR APPROACH

A multi-disciplinary, cross-office group of attorneys from Goodwin’s REITs and Real Estate Industry group was assembled to advise on this significant and complex IPO. The underwriting syndicate consisted of 17 banks and was led by Deutsche Bank Securities, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs & Co., Wells Fargo Securities, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets.

Invitation Homes, a leading owner and operator of single-family homes for lease, was sponsored by The Blackstone Group, which did not sell any shares in the offering and owned approximately 220,000,000 shares of the company as of the time of the IPO. Blackstone’s global real estate group is the largest private equity real estate manager in the world.

THE OUTCOME

In its initial listing on the New York Stock Exchange, Invitation Homes (INVH) sold 88,550,000 shares in the offering at a price of $20 per share, which was above the $19.50 midpoint of the price range in the preliminary prospectus. The widely watched IPO was, at the time, the largest since 2015, indicating strong market demand for REITs and potentially setting the stage for an increase in IPO activity in the coming year.