Activist Investors Have a New Favorite Target: REITs
ByCreditSasha Maslov for The New York Times
Activist investors like Carl C. Icahn and William A. Ackman know how to rattle the cages of Corporate America’s chief executives. These so-called corporate raiders have long been storming onto boards in the broader market, threatening proxy fights and demanding that management make changes, from spinning off divisions to putting an entire blue-chip company on the block. But recently such activists have started shaking up real estate investment trusts.
Last year, there were 26 activist campaigns against REITs, according to SharkRepellent.net, a corporate governance research firm and unit of FactSet. That compares with six in 2011 and 12 in 2012…