Friday, March 09, 2012

Creativity Fail

Inland Western REIT has changed its name to Retail Properties of America, Inc.   American Realty Capital is already offering a similar product, Retail Centers of America, Inc.  Why would Inland Western change its name to almost match a competitor's exisitng product?  Maybe imitation is the best form of compliment, or maybe it's a case of dialing it in.  It's creativity failure either way.  To me, it's more likely that Inland is distancing itself from a product that has struggled so that Inland can protect its brand for its current and future offerings.  

The former Inland Western's Net Asset Value per share is 30% below its original offer price, and while it has worked hard for investors to keep paying a distribution, and has increased it nine quarters in a row, the current distribution (2.6% annualized) is well below the REIT's original distribution.  In the REIT's defense it raised and deployed capital in the mid-2000s in retail real estate, one of the real estate asset classes most impacted by the recession and housing slump.  The former Inland Western also fought to refinance debt that matured near the worst of the credit crisis.  Inland should have put more thought and originality into the name change.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. You had to try pretty hard to pick this one apart. I think it's accurate in terms of who they are. Just an added bonus it's not called "Western" any longer. ARC is a jonhnny come lately anyhow.

REIT Wrecks said...

" Inland should have put more thought and originality into the name change."

In addition, perhaps they should have put more thought into their acquisition fee fueled buying spree....

Am I on deck?!

Cheers, REIT Wrecks

REIT Wrecks said...

clarification, the above is directed toward anonymous

Anonymous said...

I'm sure this won't further delay their IPO while they find a new ticker symbol. IWST as a symbol reminding investors they paid $10 a share for this dog.

Anonymous said...

Inland Western NAV down more than 50%, astounding acquisitions fees paid and a looming $100mm+ internalization fee?

Seriously, BDs?

Anonymous said...

Very disappointed and frustrated with these guys. Hopefully, the low IPO price is the bottom of the barrel for them. Lets rebuild this thing now.

Never again will I listen to my backoffice's research. Very little was said during the money raising period except good job. All we can do now is wait.