I've sat on the boards of two industrial REITs, each with more than $3 billion in assets, and each ultimately acquired through a tender offer process. What struck me both times was that even at that scale, liquidity remained a real constraint. This, along with other factors, impacted their valuations and their ability to grow, which further impacted their liquidity. Part of the liquidity issue was explained by the heavy concentration of long-term hold investors in Mexico. Her

Ask a REIT management team about its cost of debt and you'll get an answer to the basis point. It's an easy number to get your head around. It's right there on the term sheet. Ask the same team, "What's your cost of equity?" and the conversation changes. Most firms will point to a CAPM model: a risk-free rate, a beta, an equity risk premium. CAPM isn't “wrong”, but it is theoretical, and most companies use it almost like an academic exercise. Not a thoughtful one. The number

It was August 2009 when I first saw him. I was at a Rush Street cafe located in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. I saw a stocky man in a biker blue denim jacket, a white beard, a balding head, and an overflowing smile. One of my business school classmates with me said, “That’s Sam Zell”. I had two thoughts: Who is Sam Zell? and why is a billionaire dressed like a biker? After living in Chicago for a few years and eventually joining Green Street, I quickly learned that

As a father of two young children- a savvy young girl and a charismatic baby boy - I’d like to believe the world they are growing into...

It was my second year in business school and that was the first time I heard the four letter word “REIT” or real estate investment trust....

My father spent most of his childhood in the greater Guadalajara, Mexico region. As a teenager, he was a construction worker laboring...