Land & Buildings mounts board challenge at Ventas, nominates 3 candidates source
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
NEW YORK, Jan 11(Reuters) - Activist investor Land & Buildings Investment Management nominated three director candidates at Ventas, arguing change is needed to improve performance at the owner of senior housing communities, a person familiar with the matter said.
Jonathan Litt, Land & Buildings' founder and chief investment officer warned Ventas last year that he might mount a board challenge but also said he was ready to work constructively with the company to boost returns.
The investment firm, which owns roughly $50 million of the real estate investment trust's shares, real estate finance executives for election to the company's 11-member board, the source said.
Nori Gerardo Lietz, teaches at Harvard Business School and founded real estate advisory firm Arete Capital, Ted Bigman headed the Global Listed Real Assets business at Morgan Stanley and John Guinee, who worked at Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, serves on the board of Plymouth Industrial REIT Inc.
A Ventas spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
This marks the second time in two years that Land & Buildings has proposed director candidates at Ventas.
In 2022, investors elected all of the company's directors after proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services recommended shareholders vote for management's nominees instead of Jonathan Litt, the Land & Buildings nominee.
However ISS wrote in April, 2022 that if management did not improve performance, shareholders could press for more substantive changes if the dissident were to present a broader slate.
Ventas, which has a market value of $19 billion, saw its stock slip 0.88% in the last 52 weeks while Welltower Inc, a rival, saw its stock price climb 26% in the last year.
Ventas owns or has investments in approximately 1,400 properties in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by David Gregorio)
