Brookfield Asset Management has offered to buy out Rouse Properties, a US listed shopping centre company, for $17 per share.

Rouse said it had set up a special committee made up of board directors to assess and act on the unsolicited proposal.

Brookfield and affiliates aleady own one-third of Rouse Properties, which manages 35 shopping malls in 21 US states, encompassing approximately 24.1m sqft.

Brookfield said the proposed price represents a premium of 26% to the closing share price on January 15, and a 19% premium to the 30-day volume-weighted average trading price of Rouse shares.

Brian Kingston, CEO of Brookfield, said: “Our offer provides an attractive opportunity for Rouse shareholders to realise a significant premium to recent public market pricing.”

Rouse has hired law firm Sidley Austin and BofA Merill Lynch to advise on the offer.

The news comes two weeks after IPE Real Estate reported that Brookfield is planning to buy another US real estate company, Simply Self Storage, for $830m.

It also comes a month after another shopping mall REIT, Inland Real Estate Corporation, was the subject of a takeover.