Inland Retail Inks $6.2B Merger Pact

Inland Retail Real Estate Trust Inc., Oak Brook, Ill., has announced a merger agreement with Cleveland-based Developers Diversified Realty Corp. under which DDR and its partners will pay $6.2 billion for the more than 300 retail properties in the portfolio of Inland Retail and its joint ventures.Inland Retail, one of four real estate investment trusts sponsored by Inland Real Estate Investment Corp., said the transaction will not affect the stockholders of the other Inland-sponsored REITs. Daniel L. Goodwin, chairman of The Inland Real Estate Group of Companies Inc., touted Inland's record as an incubator of real estate investment companies and said Inland American Real Estate Trust "is in the process of acquiring more property than Inland Retail is expected to sell through this proposed merger." The Inland group of companies can be found online at http://www.inlandgroup.com, and DDR can be found at http://www.ddrc.com.