SANTA ANA, CA-Grubb & Ellis Co. has received notice from the New York Stock Exchange that it is not in compliance with listing standards that require a minimum average closing price of $1 per share over 30 consecutive trading days. The notice is the second such warning that Grubb & Ellis has received in the past two years from the NYSE, which notified the Santa Ana-based company in August 2009 that it was not in compliance with listing standards. In that case, it was because the company’s total market capitalization had been less than $50 million over a consecutive 30-trading-day period and its last reported stockholders' equity was less than $50 million.

Grubb & Ellis remained listed after the 2009 notice, and it has up to a six-month period from the date of this latest notification “to cure this deficiency,” according to a company statement. As required, Grubb & Ellis said, it will notify the NYSE that it intends to cure the deficiency. The company’s stock was trading at 69 cents at mid-morning Monday, down a penny for the day.

The notice of possible delisting comes at a time when Grubb & Ellis is considering a possible sale or merger, as reported on GlobeSt.com recently. In that report, the company said that it had named JMP Securities as an adviser to explore “strategic alternatives, including the potential sale or merger of the company” after receiving “unsolicited inquiries.”

Following its naming of JMP as an adviser, the company received an $18 million financing commitment from Santa Monica, CA-based Colony Capital LLC, the private investment firm founded by chairman and CEO Thomas J. Barrack Jr. As reported on GlobeSt.com at the time, in conjunction with the financing, Colony was granted the right to an exclusive 60-day negotiating period to evaluate a potential larger strategic investment with the company.

Grubb & Ellis reported a loss of 10.7 million and 21 cents a share for the fourth quarter of 2010, compared with net income of $16.8 million and 11 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2009, primarily as a result of a gain of $21.9 million realized on the repayment of debt and $3.4 million of income from discontinued operations. For the full year 2010, the company reported a net loss of $66.8 million and $1.21 per share, compared with a net loss of $78.8 million and $1.27 per share for 2009.

In its announcement of 2010 financial results, Grubb & Ellis president and CEO Thomas D'Arcy commented: "Although we are generally pleased with our revenue performance for the fourth quarter and all of 2010, we clearly have more work to do to translate this revenue growth into profitability." The company’s revenue grew to $163.5 million in the fourth quarter from $148.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, while its full-year revenue for 2010 grew to $575.5 million, compared with revenue of $527.9 million in 2009.