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Blackstone Buying Shopping-Center Stake

Blackstone Group LP is buying a majority interest in 40 shopping centers valued at $1.1 billion as it continues to load up on grocery-anchored retail property in the U.S. The private-equity company will pay roughly $274 million in cash and assume $463 million of debt for a two-thirds stake in the properties, which are concentrated in the metropolitan areas of New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and San Diego.

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