RE:"Preferred Shares" are usually shares that haveHi Raging,
Here are my quick thoughts on your questions:
(i) BPO was the flagship real estate subsidiary of BAM that Bruce Flatt rose to prominence in the 1990's. I believe that Flatt will stand behind BPO forever. This is the foremost reason why I am long BPO preferred shares and its public debt. There are very few CEO's in Canada that have skin in the game like Flatt does.
(ii) Around 2014, BAM launched BPY as its new real estate arm and it brought together all the real estate at the BAM level(eg Canary Wharf in London etc) and it then privatized BPO to get all BAMs commercial real estate under one umbrella.
(iii) BPO is a legal entity and while its common stock is owned 100% by BAM et al (ie it is privately owned), it does have debt held with the public and it has preferred shares that are held by the public. I agree with you that it it is strange that BPO has no public filings on its website since 2015 - I think the following Sedar filing explains that all BPO filings fall under BPY's disclosures:
"NOTICE Brookfield Office Properties Inc. hereby gives notice, pursuant to section 13.4(2)(d)(ii)(A) of National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations (“NI 51-102”), that it is relying on the continuous disclosure documents filed by Brookfield Property Partners L.P. and that such documents can be found for viewing in electronic format at www.sedar.com under the company profile for Brookfield Property Partners L.P. Attached to this notice and forming part hereof is the consolidated summary financial information for Brookfield Property Partners L.P."
I will look through the BPY filings and there must be a breakout of BPO in those filings.
Vette