The board of directors of Veris Residential Inc. has unanimously rejected Kushner Companies’ unsolicited proposals to acquire the company for $16.00 per share or to externally manage the company, saying neither proposal “was in shareholders’ best interests.
In Veris’ November 3 letter to Kushner Cos. Chairman Charles Kushner, the board said the acquisition price “grossly undervalues the company in its current form and denies Veris Residential shareholders the substantial value expected to be unlocked from the pending completion of the company’s strategic transformation.”
The board is committed to evaluating other acquisition proposals, it said.
The board also rejected Kushner’s October 20 bid to take over management of the company, saying Veris’ transformation to a solely multifamily operator as it sells other properties from its predecessor firm Mack-Cali Realty Corp was nearly complete, and stating that “Kushner Companies lacks third-party management expertise, has a well-documented history of questionable management practices, and is in direct competition with Veris Residential, creating inherent conflicts of interest.”
In a response to the letter, Kushner called it “uninformed at best and disingenuous at worst.” Kushner, a New Jersey-based operator of 20,000 multifamily apartments, 10,000 units under development, and a commercial portfolio, is one of the six largest shareholders of Veris assembling a stake of 4.5 million shares over the last five months.
