All of CommonWealth REIT’s trustees have been removed following a two-thirds shareholder vote in favor of the board’s ouster.
The move is a feather in the cap of Corvex Management LP and the Related Companies, who collectively own 9.6 percent of the REIT’s shares and have been jockeying for the board’s ouster for a year now. The activists want a new board with billionaire Sam Zell at the helm, along with Zell’s Equity Group Investments co-president David Helfand.
Should they be chosen, the duo have agreed to serve as chairman and chief executive officer of the Newton, Massachusetts-based REIT respectively.
Zell is also a lead investor in Par Petroleum Corp., one of Select Income REIT’s largest tenants. Select is 44 percent-owned by the Newton, Massachusetts-based CommonWealth, as previously reported. [Bloomberg] — Julie Strickland