TOKYO, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Today the New City Residence Investment Corporation (NCRI) Shareholders' Group (Reference: http://ameblo.jp/ncri/ ) announced that it supports a merger between New City Residence Investment Corporation, a Japan based real estate investment trust (J REIT) (Reference: TSE 8965), and B-Life Investment Corporation (TSE 8984).
The NCRI Shareholders' Group strongly believes that a merger between the two entities, on the terms that it currently understands are being contemplated, will provide the best long-term value to NCRI unit holders and creditors.
Today the NCRI Shareholders' Group also announced that over the course of the last several days it held extensive discussions with management and advisors associated with B-Life Investment Corporation including entities linked to Daiwa House of Japan. These discussions were governed by strict legally binding confidentiality agreements and were very detailed.
NCRI, Japan's second largest residential J-REIT, filed for civil rehabilitation proceedings on October 9, 2008. Most of NCRI's relatively new real estate assets are located in Tokyo's 23 wards, mainly in the most central areas of the city. Despite civil rehabilitation proceedings, NCRI has substantial equity on its books.
Accordingly, the objective of the NCRI Shareholders Group, which was established on November 11, 2008 by Tobias Josef Brown, Managing Director of UCL Asia Ltd. (Hong Kong) and other investors, is to protect the rights of all NCRI unit holders, including NCRI's numerous individual investors.
The NCRI Shareholders' Group represents individual and institutional investors that control more than 50% of outstanding units of NCRI. The goal of the discussions between the NCRI Shareholders' Group and B-Life was to allow the members of the NCRI Shareholders' Group to better understand B-Life's interest in potentially merging with NCRI.
Each side clearly understands that on September 9, 2009, the creditors of NCRI will vote as to whether they will support an alternate proposal to rehabilitate NCRI by another firm. The NCRI Shareholders' Group entered into discussions with B-Life to determine, should the creditors reject the current proposal to rehabilitate NCRI on September 9, whether the NCRI Shareholders' Group would support the Daiwa House/B-Life Proposal. After our discussions, there is no doubt that the NCRI Shareholders' Group would strongly support the Daiwa House/B-Life proposal.
The NCRI Shareholders' Group was extremely impressed with the details of the Daiwa House/B-Life proposal and should the NCRI Shareholders' Group members be given a chance to vote on this proposal, they would unanimously support it.
In addition, the NCRI Shareholders' Group was impressed with the sincerity and fairness of the Daiwa House/B-Life stance towards NCRI Unit holders.
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