At least one of those options could be the sale or merger of the 31-year-old company, according to speculation on Wall Street--speculation that company CEO/president David Stockert himself acknowledged during an Internet conference call with analysts Nov. 5. But Stockert stopped short of confirming or denying the rumor's accuracy.

"Obviously, there's a lot of rumors swirling around, and that's being fueled by this disconnect between private market pricing and REIT share prices," Stockert said during the conference call. He said he and other company officials "don't really want to participate in that conjecture and speculation and rumor."

If Post were sold or merged, it would clearly be one of the biggest transactions this year in the REIT industry, analysts say.

At Tuesday's board meeting, Stockert told analysts Post directors will "look at every option available to maximize value for the shareholders."

One option sure to be on the table, analysts say, is a cut in the company's annual dividend of $3.12 per share. Analysts say Post's current cash flow can't support that high a dividend. They point to the company's year-long sales of apartment communities, largely to cover its dividend payouts.

For the nine-month period, Post logged $190 million in gross apartment community sales and the closing of its Post Massachusetts Avenue joint venture development project in Washington, DC, the company says in its third-quarter earnings filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission as GlobeSt.com reports elsewhere on this page.

On the same day as the conference call, Merrill Lynch analyst Steve Sakwa predicted in a new analysis Post would trim its dividend by 36%. "We believe that weak fundamentals in the apartment industry will force Post to cut its dividend to roughly $2 per share, which will, nonetheless, provide investors with a 7.9% yield," Sakwa says in his analysis.

Merrill Lynch continues to give Post common a "buy" rating for its strong yield. The stock opened Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange at $25.50 per share. The stock's 52-week high-low is $36.70 and $22.40 per share. There are 36.9 million common shares outstanding.

Post, which owns 30,317 multifamily units in 84 communities, has sold its third-party management and landscaping operations and reduced its workforce by a third in the past 12 months.

Still, some analysts and Atlanta area brokers argue, Post's existing management would find it difficult to give up control of the company chairman John A. Williams founded in 1971 and ran for 31 years before stepping down as president/CEO in March of this year.

That's when the 38-year-old Stockert became the company's CEO and president. He joined Post Jan. 1, 2001 after a highly successful career as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Weeks Corp. which later was merged into Duke-Weeks Realty Corp. and then became Duke Realty Corp. after principal Raymond Weeks retired.

According to Post's Web site, the company's directors are Williams; Stockert; vice chairman John T. Glover; Arthur M. Blank, co-founder/retired co-chairman, The Home Depot Inc.; Herschel M. Bloom, partner, King & Spaulding law firm; Russel R. French, general partner, Noro-Moseley Partners; Robert C. Goddard III, chairman/CEO, Goddard Investment Group LLC; Charles E. Rice, chairman, Mayport Venture Partners LLC; and Ronald de Waal, chairman, WE International b.v. (The Netherlands) and vice chairman, Saks Inc. (USA).