Toll Brothers to purchase Southland builder for $1.6 billion
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Building giant Toll Brothers has agreed to purchase the home-building business of Shapell Industries, the Beverly Hills firm behind tens of thousands of houses across California.
The $1.6-billion deal, announced late Wednesday, significantly boosts Toll’s land holdings within the California market at a time when builders cite the lack of buildable lots as a key impediment to taking advantage of the housing rebound.
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Toll Brothers Inc, a public company based in Pennsylvania, adds about 5,200 lots in California with the deal. Nearly all the lots are approved for development and are in established communities, Toll Brothers said.
Much of the land is in the extremely sought-after markets of Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Orange County and northern San Diego County.
“We think the recovery in these areas is still in the early stages,” Toll Brothers Chief Executive Douglas C. Yearley Jr. said in a conference call with analysts Thursday morning.
Shapell Industries Inc. developed the San Fernando Valley’s Porter Ranch, and was founded in 1955 by Nathan Shapell, his brother David and brother-in-law Max Webb.
Nathan Shapell, a Holocaust survivor, was a prominent philanthropist and Californian civic leader, a 2007 Los Angeles Times obituary said. His company has built more than 70,000 homes in California.
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