Land & Buildings Issues Open Letter to American Homes 4 Rent On Environmental Concerns
The activist hedge fund pushes to vote against all members of the nominating and corporate governance committee.
Issuing yet another open letter to pressure companies into one action or another, Land & Buildings has targeted American Homes 4 Rent.
Stating that it is a “significant shareholder of American Homes 4 Rent,” the firm noted “concerns around the company’s failure to adopt any significant environmentally friendly home policies and its intention to vote against the re-election of all members of the Board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee at the upcoming 2022 Annual Meeting.”
“Surprisingly, a review of AMH’s publicly available ESG policies is silent on the topic of using solar roofs until last week’s announcement of a small pilot program with Elevation for solar energy primarily related to the company’s amenity centers,” Land & Buildings wrote. “Our last discussion with CEO David Singelyn and CFO Chris Lau made clear to us that the company is not taking the necessary steps to lead the industry in environmental home standards.”
In a Land & Buildings March press release announcing it was nominating its own candidate for a board position, although mentioning that it believed “American Homes 4 Rent is materially undervalued,” they were silent on that same topic of solar roof use that the latest letter focuses on.
That release noted the firm had 1,350,323 shares of American Homes common stock. Data from S&P Global Market Intelligence shows that the number of outstanding shares is 348.3 million, meaning that Land & Buildings holds about 0.39%.
This open letter represents at least the third time in 2022 alone that Land & Buildings has appeared in a public disclosure, either of its own or a targeted company. In early February, the firm publicly sent an acquisition offer letter to LXP Industrial Trust, an owner, developer, operator, and acquirer of premium industrial properties in the US. The letter, which LXP made public, said it would prefer a merger agreement. “We believe our proposal represents the best means for stockholders of LXP to maximize the value of their shares,” wrote founder and CIO Jonathan Litt.
In early March, Land & Buildings issued a public letter to Ventas. The firm claimed that “total shareholder returns and earnings growth have significantly underperformed its closest peer over the past 10, 5, 3 and 1-year periods” and further said it “believes Ventas’ bad faith engagement with Land & Buildings underscores the need for change at the board level.”