Brookfield Properties Corp. — one of Canada's biggest office developers — continued to pull in the revenue and the profits in the third quarter, as it prepared for one of its biggest acquisitions ever, the $7.2-billion US purchase of the Trizec real estate business.

"Following the successful closing of Trizec, we are focused on the asset management of our newly acquired properties with the goal of surfacing value," said Ric Clark, Brookfield's president and chief executive officer.

Brookfield three-month trading

And he referred to several other major deals in his statement Thursday, as Brookfield continued to grow.

"We are pleased to have expanded into two new markets, Houston and downtown Los Angeles, and to have added a number of prestigious firms to our already-strong tenant roster."

Brookfield has slowly but steadily become a major force in the North American real estate market in recent years, growing out of its home base in Toronto and moving its head office to New York. It now reports in U.S. dollars.

When the Trizec deal closed four days after the quarter's end, Brookfield had 106 properties totalling 73 million square feet, with landmark buildings in downtown New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, Houston, Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa.

Brookfield's strategy is to build major office towers in cities with strong financial services, and tenants from the government and energy sectors, a plan that has given it such landmark assets as the World Financial Center in Manhattan, BCE Place in Toronto, Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles and Bankers Hall in Calgary.

It recently bought the Four Allen Center in Houston for $120 million US and promptly leased the entire building to Chevron. That deal made it the largest office developer in Houston.

For the third quarter, Brookfield reported profit of $35 million US or 14 cents a share, up from the year-earlier profit of $33 million US or 14 cents a share. Revenue rose to $428 million US over this period from $373 million US, while funds from operations, a statistic that Brookfield prefers to use, rose to $109 million US from $97 million US. 

For the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, Brookfield made a profit of $114 million US or 48 cents a share, down slightly from the year-earlier $117 million US or 49 cent a share. The latest figures included a Canadian tax adjustment that lowered profit by $18 million Canadian.

The nine-month funds from operations rose to $318 million US or $1.35 a share, from $297 million or $1.26 per diluted share during the same period in 2005.

Brookfield's shares fell 42 cents to $42.55 Canadian on the Toronto Stock Exchange Thursday, a day after the federal government sent the market down by 300 points with its bombshell announcement on income trusts.