Kennedy Wilson Selling for $1.65B to William McMorrow, Fairfax Financial Consortium
Fairfax would assume majority ownership of the firm at deal close, while McMorrow, who is Kennedy Wilson’s chairman and CEO, will retain operational control
By Nick Trombola February 17, 2026 1:45 pm
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Nearly 35 years after initially taking global real estate firm Kennedy Wilson public (and again nearly 20 years later), William McMorrow wants his firm back.
The Southern California native, alongside a consortium of senior Kennedy Wilson executives and the firm’s longtime business partner Fairfax Financial, has entered into an agreement to acquire Kennedy Wilson for $1.65 billion. The consortium is set to acquire all outstanding shares of the firm, minus consortium-owned shares, for $10.90 per share in an all-cash deal. Members of the consortium owned approximately 31 percent of the company’s outstanding stock at the time of its initial proposal in November.
Fairfax is footing the bill for the acquisition, which is not subject to any financing arrangements, and is expected to have majority ownership of Kennedy Wilson following the deal close. McMorrow’s KW Management Group will retain operational control of the company and its subsidiaries, such as its affordable housing development venture Vintage Housing. In September, Kennedy Wilson acquired Toll Brothers’ 18-property Apartment Living platform for $347 million, and in late 2024 broke Santa Barbara County records with its $116 million purchase of a 460-unit housing complex in Santa Maria, Calif.
The deal is set to close in the second quarter of this year. Representatives for Kennedy Wilson and for Fairfax did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Private ownership will allow the company to focus on continuing to execute its business plan without the need for ongoing public reporting (and the associated expense and administrative burden) and enable the company to align resources with its long-term strategy,” the consortium wrote to Kennedy Wilson’s board of directors in early November.
Founded in Southern California in 1977 as a real estate auction company, Kennedy Wilson was acquired by McMorrow in 1988. The Beverly Hills-based firm was taken public in 1992, transferred back to private ownership in 2004, yet once again taken public in a McMorrow-led effort in 2009.
Kennedy Wilson currently owns $31 billion of assets under management across the U.S., U.K. and Ireland, including a roughly $2.6 billion loan portfolio that it acquired in 2023 from PacWest Bancorp in the wake of that year’s regional banking crisis.
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
