Rexford’s incoming chief executive and current chief operating officer Laura Clark used the occasion of the industrial investor’s quarterly earnings call to discuss plans to dispose of $400 million to $500 million worth of assets this year.
Rexford reported a loss of about $69 million during the fourth quarter, compared to an income of $59 million for the same period a year earlier, in its first earnings since it announced plans for a CEO succession in the wake of activist investor Paul Singer’s Elliott Investment Management becoming one of its largest shareholders. According to Rexford, $89 million of impairments related to developments it elected to sell and $60 million of co-CEO transition costs were to blame. The losses were slightly offset by $20 million of gains on sales of real estate.
Rexford has identified six development projects totaling about 850,000 square feet that the company is no longer moving forward with. Rexford has either accepted offers or is under contract to sell the properties, Clark said
That goes hand-in-hand with a post-Elliott initiative calling for the company to maximize returns by selling assets and reinvesting capital into share repurchases — a repeat of a strategy it engaged last year as Elliott circled. That was a departure from buy-happy days, as Rexford peddled seven properties for a total of $217.5 million — and repurchased more than 6 million shares of common stock for a total of $250 million.
The Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust ended the year with a 90 percent occupied portfolio after executing 10 million square feet of new and renewal leases but saw its rents decline 1 percent quarter-over-quarter and 20 percent since a peak reached early 2023, in the current, softer Southern California industrial sector.
For the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, net income was $200 million compared to $263 million the year before.