Cousins Properties Incorporated

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Cousins Properties was founded in 1958 by Thomas G. Cousins, and has been publicly traded REIT ever since 1962. Its NYSE ticker symbol is CUZ. It's based in Atlanta Georgia, and focuses on the Sunbelt states of Florida, Georgia, Texas and California.

Cousins is widely diversified for a REIT development company. It develops commercial office, medical office and retail properties throughout the United States. It owns office buildings, office parks, downtown mixed-use developments, regional malls, community shopping centers, urban residential communities, and single-family communities.

Its portfolio is about 50% office, 30% retail, 15% land and 5% industrial. Also, they prefer to sell properties a lot, to "recycle" capital.

Unlike most REIT, Cousins does a lot of development work. It's developed more than 20 million square feet of office space and 20 million square feet of retail space. Its portfolio currently consists of 7.7 million square feet of office space, 4.8 million square feet of retail space, 2 million square feet of industrial space, two multi-family residential properties, 24 single-family residential developments, and around 9,000 square feet of tracts of land for future sale or development.

Cousin Properties Include:

Bank of America Plaza, One Ninety One Peachtree, and Frost Bank Tower. 3100 Windy Hill Road, Galleria 75, Terminus, and Cosmopolitan in Atlanta Georgia. The Points at Waterview in Dallas Texas. Lakeshore Park Plaza in Birmingham Alabama. It owns the Avenue concept retail centers.

Its land for development includes Brentwater, The Georgian, The Lakes at Cedar Grove, Callaway Gardens, River's Call, Seven Hills, Blalock Lakes, and North Point.

In 2005, CUZ acquired the Gellerstedt Group. Until July 2009, the CEO was Thomas D. Bell, Jr. But at that time, the board of directors of Cousins Properties appointed Larry Gellerstedt III to that post.

As soon as possible, Gellersted lowered the balance sheet's debt from 70 to 40%, by raising $130 million in a public offering. Yet is now looking for attractive distressed properties, and developmental opportunities.

Cousins Properties is a real estate investment trust benefiting from the prosperity and growing in the Sunbelt, south and southwest of the United States.

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