Gramercy Property Trust has acquired a 7.8 million-square-foot warehouse portfolio for $479 million and, separately, is launching a joint venture to focus on new US e-commerce distribution facilities. It has made a $642 million forward purchase for the joint venture, consisting of seven new bulk distribution properties.

The market would be receptive to an initial public offering in a nontraditional asset category, such as an industrial REIT IPO or a data-center REIT IPO, says Dirk Aulabaugh, managing director with Green Street's Advisory Group. Retail REITs may be better-suited for privatization targets, as some will require capital to turn around struggling malls "and the public markets might not be the best place for that to happen," Aulabaugh says.

Major US corporations have sold more than $1 trillion of investment-grade debt this year, exceeding that threshold earlier in the year than ever before. The market for corporate bonds usually slows in August, but several large offerings, including $17.25 billion from British American Tobacco, have surfaced in recent weeks.

Blackstone has told underwriters it is considering an initial public offering for Gates Global that would value the company at about $7 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The private equity investor bought the maker of building products and auto parts three years ago for $5.4 billion.

Listed equity REITs are sometimes categorized with small-cap value stocks -- the best-performing non-REIT part of the stock market -- but have outperformed them over long investment periods while providing substantially lower volatility and better diversification benefits.

Walmart is partnering with Google to bring voice shopping to Google's Assistant platform. The partnership will allow customers to purchase hundreds of thousands of Walmart items to pick up in store or have delivered; customers will order via voice or through a "quick reordering" tool beginning in late September.

The e-commerce boom has increased industrial properties' valuations, with cap rates falling to 6.66% in the first half of 2017; retail valuations, by contrast, have been adversely affected, with cap rates rising to to 7.31%. Brick-and-mortar landlords are trying to counter this trend by incorporating elements of online commerce into the buying experience.

Despite recent conflicts between REITs and skilled-nursing tenants, there is a future for REITs in this space, experts say. "REITs such as Omega, Sabra, CCP and Quality Care Properties are seeking to expand their SNF base," says Mark Myers of Institutional Property Advisors.

Home prices in the US rose 6.6% year-over-year in the second quarter and increased by 1.6% from the previous three months, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. "The tight inventory is a major explanation for why house prices have been increasing every quarter over the last six years," says William Doerner, senior economist at FHFA.

Three US bank regulators are drafting a proposal to simplify capital rules that are intended to cut the cost of compliance for community banks. The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are also extending the effective date of temporary rules for financial institutions with less than $250 billion in assets and no more than $10 billion of foreign exposure.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reports the percentage of bank assets with a fixed rate longer than five years reached 27.5% in the second quarter, a record high. Chairman Martin Gruenberg fears banks in search of yield have exposed themselves to risk should interest rates rise rapidly.

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