GE Real Estate will pay $3.2 billion for Arden Realty, a company that owns a portfolio of Southern California’s prestige office properties. The new owner will also assume Arden’s 1.6 billion debt reports the Los Angeles Times.

Arden is Southern California’s largest office landlord with 192 buildings at 116 properties across five counties. The sale greatly increases GE’s holdings in the region.

Arden Chairman Richard Ziman said the time was right for the sale because of rising rents and falling vacnacies. “The timing was there,” he told the Times. “The perspective of this management team was that this was the appropriate time to maximize shareholder value.”

An analyst told the paper the time was right because Arden’s balance sheet was fully leveraged, which would hampered future growth.

The deal is expected to close by May.