Lennar to Buy CalAtlantic
Builder Online
By John McManus
Lennar’s $5.7 billion acquisition bid for No. 5-ranked CalAtlantic would create the largest home building enterprise by revenue ($17 billion in 2016 revenues, according to our Builder 100 data), and would signal an ongoing consolidation of clout among fewer, larger players in the late innings of the current housing recovery.
Plus, just as D.R. Horton’s acquisition earlier this year of Forestar secured the nation’s No. 1 builder by volume a mega landbank of lots, Lennar’s purchase accomplishes a similar goal, adding CalAtlantic’s pipeline of nearly 65,000 homesites in 41 markets and 17 states, and strengthens Lennar’s evolving customer segmentation strategy–ranging from the multifamily for-rent and single-family rental end of the spectrum to the higher-end and 55+ community development opportunity offered by WCI and former Standard Pacific land positions.