The latest target for activist investors? REITs

Tactics used to shake up broader market get deployed more often against publicly traded real estate companies

Clockwise from top left: Carl Icahn, Nelson Peltz, Bill Ackman and Richard Brand
Clockwise from top left: Carl Icahn, Nelson Peltz, Bill Ackman and Richard Brand

From the August issue: Corporate raiders like Carl Icahn and Nelson Peltz made CEOs’ pulses race in the 1980s, when they were providing inspiration for the “Wall Street” movie character Gordon Gekko.

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Back then, however, just a sliver of the equity market was focused on the real estate industry. Fast forward a few decades and those raiders, now known more generously as “activist investors,” are flexing their muscles at a time when real estate investment trusts represent a substantial part of the financial sandbox they play in. [more]