AvalonBay and Equity Residential split Archstone (2012-2013)
The same two companies jointly bought Archstone from the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy estate for about $16 billion. Equity Residential took roughly 60% of the apartments and AvalonBay took about 40%, dividing one large platform between them.
Both companies absorbed thousands of high-end coastal apartments and grew their portfolios sharply.
It set a template for the two firms cooperating on a giant deal, which they repeated in 2026 by combining outright.
The 2026 merger is the sequel: instead of splitting a rival, the two partners merged with each other.
