What Happened to Hines REIT and Hines Global REIT? $7.59 and $9.50 a Share Back, Liquidation by Liquidation

Two Hines REITs, two different endings

People searching “Hines REIT” usually mean one of two funds sold by Hines Securities through brokers. Both are finished. A third Hines fund, still open, is a different company; see the section on Hines Global Income Trust below.

The two share a sponsor, a director (Jeffrey C. Hines) and a filing style, but their records diverge on the two questions holders ask most: how close the payout came to the estimate, and who else got paid out of it.

Hines REIT: a ten-year fade, then one big sale

Hines REIT's problems started long before the liquidation vote. The filings show the sequence:

Estimated value per share went from $7.78 (May 2011) to $7.61 (November 2012), $6.75 after the 2013 special distributions, $6.40 (November 2013), $6.50 (December 2014) and $6.65 (September 2015). None of those was close to the $10.00-$10.66 people had paid, a gap the company's later filings acknowledge: Hines REIT “decreased its distribution rate in July 2010 and further decreased the rate in April 2013.”

The exit came as a package. On June 29, 2016 the board signed a deal to sell seven West Coast office properties (Howard Hughes Center in Los Angeles, 5th and Bell in Seattle, two Redmond campuses and three Bay Area buildings) to BRE Hydra Property Owner LLC, an affiliate of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII, for about $1.162 billion, and made the sale part of a plan of liquidation that stockholders had to approve. JPMorgan Chase Tower ($273.0 million) and 321 North Clark ($340.1 million) were sold the same summer.

The last $0.07 took 15 months because the company kept a reserve of about $0.05 a share for wind-down costs and a pending lawsuit, and the lawsuit is the part of Hines REIT's story with no equivalent at most liquidated REITs.

Where part of the liquidation money went: the sponsor's participation interest

Hines REIT paid its advisor partly in cash and partly through a profits interest in its operating partnership, called the Participation Interest and held by HALP Associates Limited Partnership, which the proxy says is “indirectly owned and controlled by Jeffrey C. Hines and Gerald D. Hines.” Because HALP was a partner, it shared in every liquidating distribution alongside stockholders.

On August 11, 2016 a purported class of stockholders sued in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City (No. 24-C-16-004496), with derivative claims on the company's behalf. The settlement notice summarizes the allegations: that the Participation Interest had been miscalculated, that cash fees already paid the advisor in full so that the interest “constituted double compensation”, that it unjustly enriched HALP, and that it was at least a partial cause of Hines REIT's failure to move to self-management or a liquidity event. The defendants denied all of it and settled “without any liability or wrongdoing attributed to them,” for $3,250,000 less attorneys' fees, paid pro rata to holders of record on March 2, 2018 with no claim form. That net amount was the roughly $0.01 a share in the July 2018 final payment.

One more related-party step closed the books: on July 26, 2018 Hines REIT's operating partnership sold its remaining interest in the Hines US Core Office Fund to HALP for about $1.36 million and an account receivable to HALP for about $535,000, before the Form 15 was filed on August 7, 2018 with “None” as the number of holders of record.

What $100,000 in Hines REIT became, by purchase date

On July 16, 2018 Hines filed a table (as an image exhibit) showing what $100,000 invested on sample dates came back as through the final payment. It is the most direct answer for a former holder, and it shows how much the purchase date mattered.

These are total cash returned, not annualized returns and not adjusted for inflation. A buyer from late 2008 got roughly their money back after almost ten years. Hines notes the figures ignore taxes. The table is consistent with the per-share totals: up to $5.49 of regular distributions plus $7.59 of special and liquidating distributions is at most $13.08 per $10.00 share (our arithmetic), against $13.04 per share implied by the January 2005 row (our arithmetic).

Hines Global REIT: a plan that ran into COVID-19

Hines Global REIT started selling in August 2009 at $10.00. It paid $0.00191781 a share per day (7% a year on $10.00; our arithmetic) until December 2011, then $0.0017808 a day (about $0.65 a year; our arithmetic). Its 10-K for 2013 says it funded 53% of 2011 distributions, 50% of 2012's and 67% of 2013's “with cash flows from financing activities, which include proceeds from our public offerings and proceeds from our debt financings.” In February 2014 the board put the estimated NAV at $8.90 as of December 31, 2013, then raised the offering price to $10.40 effective March 4, 2014, explaining that the price included “the costs and expenses associated with raising equity”. Investors buying that spring paid $1.50 a share more than the board's own NAV (our arithmetic).

NAV then rose to $9.44 (2014) and $10.24 (2015), slipped to $10.03 (2016), and fell to $8.98 when a $1.05 special distribution was declared for holders of record December 30, 2017. On April 23, 2018 the board approved a plan of liquidation and published its estimate.

The proxy listed among the reasons to vote yes the board's expectation that “total distributions to stockholders will not be less than $10.00 per share”. Holders approved the plan on July 17, 2018: 138,693,855 for, 4,664,992 against and 5,524,200 abstaining (93.2% of votes cast; our arithmetic). For a year it went to plan: 21 properties under contract or sold for $2.0 billion by December 2018, including the German logistics portfolio (€310.0 million), Campus at Playa Vista ($330.1 million), the Poland logistics portfolio (€140.0 million), 550 Terry Francois in San Francisco ($342.5 million) and, in late 2019 and January 2020, The Summit in Bellevue ($756.0 million) and Riverside Center ($235.0 million).

Then the remaining assets, four of them retail properties, could not be sold at acceptable prices before the 24-month deadline the IRS sets for a plan of liquidation. The July 15, 2020 letter to investors says HGR therefore “formed the stockholder approved HGR Liquidating Trust” and moved everything into it on June 30, 2020; shares automatically became units. The June 30, 2020 NAV of $5.58 was about 10% below February 2019's $6.17, “primarily the result of declines in values of the Trust's four remaining retail assets”. Hines cut its asset management fee by 25% for the trust period.

Every Hines Global REIT capital distribution

The 2020 and 2021 payments came from 25 Cabot Square in London (£380.0 million), The Avenue at Murfreesboro ($141.3 million) and The Rim in San Antonio ($219.7 million); the March 2022 payment followed the $150.0 million sale of Minneapolis Retail Center, “the Company's final remaining property”. The trust had 262 million units outstanding in March 2022. After the October 2022 payment the trust said it would transfer Hines Global REIT Properties, LP to an affiliate of the sponsor and terminate. EDGAR shows no filing by the trust after October 4, 2022.

The tender offers, priced against what came after

Both funds drew unsolicited offers from buyers betting on the liquidation. Hines's July 2016 letter quoted MacKenzie's own offer: it priced at a discount “with the intention of making a profit by holding onto the Shares until the Corporation is liquidated.” Here is how each offer compares with what holders received after it (our arithmetic from the distribution tables above). For more on these offers, see our guide to non-traded REIT tender offers.

The April 2020 offer, made weeks into the pandemic at more than 75% below the last NAV, is the one that hurt. Sellers got cash when the company could promise nothing; the board's own letter conceded there was no assurance the payout would land “within the range originally estimated”. It did not land in the range, but it still came in at more than three times the offer.

Is anything still owed?

No, as of October 6, 2026. Hines REIT said its final payment would be its last, its shares were canceled on dissolution, and its Form 15 lists no holders of record. HGR Liquidating Trust called its October 2022 payment the “final special distribution” and planned to terminate. The 2018 settlement was paid through the same final distribution, with no claim form. We found no other recovery fund for either REIT in their filings.

The one thing worth checking is whether a payment reached you. Hines's October 2022 note to advisors asked whether each client's distribution would “be deposited into a brokerage account versus client's address of record” and allowed 5 to 10 days for mailed checks. A check that went to an old address or a closed custodial account may have been turned over to a state unclaimed-property program.

Not the same thing: Hines Global Income Trust

Hines Global Income Trust (CIK 1585101) is a separate, still-operating non-traded REIT. EDGAR records that it was registered as Hines Global REIT II, Inc. from September 2013 until November 28, 2017, when it took its current name, and that is the main source of the confusion. The filings of Hines REIT and Hines Global REIT describe liquidations, not a merger into any other Hines fund: Hines REIT's shares were canceled in 2018, and Hines Global REIT's became units of a liquidating trust that made its final payment in 2022. If you own Hines Global Income Trust today, its NAV, distributions and redemptions are in our Hines Global Income Trust review.

What a former holder can do with this

• Confirm what you received. For Hines REIT, the payments were $6.20 (December 2016), $0.30 (April 2017) and $0.08 (July 2018) a share, after $1.01 of special distributions in 2011-2013. For Hines Global REIT, the capital distributions are in the table above, ending with about $0.03 a unit in October 2022. Multiply by your share count and compare with your brokerage statements.
• Taxes. Both companies designated these payments as a return of a portion of invested capital and told holders to consult their tax advisors; Hines REIT's final payment was reported on 2018 Forms 1099. HGR Liquidating Trust unitholders were taxed on their share of the trust's income, gains and losses, reported on grantor letters, the last one for 2022 expected in early March 2023. Whether anything from those years can still be amended is a question for a tax professional.
• If you bought late, use the right row. Hines's own table shows a 2008 buyer of Hines REIT got back about what they paid; a 2014 buyer of Hines Global REIT at $10.40 got $9.50 of capital back plus several years of distributions at about $0.65 a share a year (our arithmetic from the stated daily rate). For how this compares with REITs that listed instead of liquidating, see our non-traded REIT listing discount study.
• If you hold another non-traded REIT now, the lessons that carry over are the redemption suspensions years before the end, distributions partly paid from offering money, and NAVs set below the offering price while sales continued. Our redemption suspension tracker follows the funds currently gated.

FAQ

Sources, read on October 6, 2026: Hines Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc. (CIK 1262959) Forms 10-K for 2009 (accession 0001262959-10-000008) and 2015 (0001262959-16-000053); 8-Ks of January 23, 2009, May 26, 2011, November 30, 2012, March 28 and November 29, 2013, December 5, 2014, September 18, 2015, May 31, 2016, August 5 and 25, 2016, November 7 and 10, 2016, December 8 and 23, 2016, March 7 and 31, 2017, March 9, 2018 (with the settlement notice), July 13, 16 and August 1, 2018, and stockholder letters of July 20 and September 16, 2016; the definitive proxy statement of August 23, 2016 (0001193125-16-688843); the Form 15 of August 7, 2018. Hines Global REIT, Inc. and HGR Liquidating Trust (CIK 1453818) Forms 10-K for 2013 (0001453818-14-000014), 2017 (0001453818-18-000014) and 2018 (0001453818-19-000011); 8-Ks of March 30, 2015, February 23, 2016, February 28, 2017, February 27, April 25, July 17, August 30, November 9 and 27 and December 20, 2018, February 6 and 14, August 12 and December 27, 2019, January 16, April 17, July 7 and 15 and September 14, 2020, May 11 and September 23, 2021, and January 10, March 16 and October 4, 2022 (0001453818-22-000010); the definitive proxy statement of May 10, 2018 (0001453818-18-000020); and EDGAR's company records for CIK 1453818 and 1585101. The $100,000 table is transcribed from the image exhibit to the July 16, 2018 8-K (0001262959-18-000004). Sums, differences, percentages of votes cast and per-share totals marked “our arithmetic” are ours. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.