M&A Acquirer Playbook

MID AMERICA APARTMENT COMMUNITIES INC. acquisition history.

Every deal, price, and strategic rationale.

Company MID AMERICA APARTMENT COMMUNITIES INC.
SEC CIK 0000912595
Tracked filings EDGAR · 8-K
Total deals tracked
2
Disclosed 8-K acquisitions, 2013 — present.
Aggregate disclosed value
$17B
approximately $17 billion (Post, 2016) and $8.6 billion (Colonial, 2013) in combined market capitalization across the two transformational mergers — both all-stock.
Active acquisition years
2013 · 2016
two transformational corporate mergers, three years apart.
Primary sectors
Sunbelt multifamily apartment REIT
entity-level mergers (Colonial Properties Trust, Post Properties) rather than individual community purchases.
Verified 2 deals on this page · sourced from SEC filings
All cross-references covered.
Timeline

2 deals, $17B deployed.

Plotted by close date where disclosed, otherwise announcement. Click any marker to jump to the deal entry.

2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 $17B Dec 2016 Post Properties $8.6B Oct 2013 Colonial Properties Tru…
The playbook

The rationale that repeats.

Three patterns show up across MID AMERICA APARTMENT COMMUNITIES's deal book — what the team buys, how it pays, and how it integrates. The patterns are the throughline; the individual deals below are the evidence.

01
Acquisition criteria

Growth by corporate merger, not community-by-community buying.

MAA's defining acquisitions are two whole-company combinations, not the routine apartment-community purchases typical of REITs. Both the Colonial Properties Trust merger (2013) and the Post Properties merger (2016) folded an entire public REIT into MAA in a single transaction, each roughly doubling or materially expanding the platform's scale at once.

Post PropertiesColonial Properties Trust
02
Capital deployment

All-stock, tax-efficient combinations under a consistent Sunbelt thesis.

Each merger was structured as an all-stock exchange (0.36 MAA shares per Colonial share; 0.71 MAA shares per Post share) intended to be tax-free or tax-deferred, preserving balance-sheet capacity. Management framed both deals around the same goal: building a Sunbelt-focused multifamily REIT with enhanced competitive advantage across high-growth markets. As CEO H. Eric Bolton, Jr. put it, the scale of the combined company would support accelerated growth and deployment of capital across high-growth Sunbelt markets.

Post PropertiesColonial Properties Trust
03
Integration approach

Each deal moved MAA up the size rankings.

The Colonial merger created what was then the second-largest publicly traded REIT portfolio of owned apartments (~85,000 units, 285 properties); the Post merger created the largest publicly traded apartment REIT by number of owned units (~105,000 units, 317 properties). The combined company retained the MAA name and Memphis headquarters in both cases, integrating target boards rather than its operating brand.

Post PropertiesColonial Properties Trust
Deal book · 2 acquisitions

The full deal book.

2 acquisitions. Click any row to see the deal value, financing structure, target revenue, executive commentary, and the original SEC filing — the evidence behind the patterns above.

End of deal book
2 acquisitions · $17B deployed ·2013 — present
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