NEW YORK CITY-Opponents of the Empire State Building's initial public offering are asking a State Appeals Court to rule that a provision in the offering illegal that offered owners of units to be paid $100 if they refused to go along with the IPO.
Steven Meister, an attorney representing dissenting unit holders who opposed including the building in a real estate investment trust, asked the state Supreme Court's Appellate Division in Manhattan to reverse Justice O. Peter Sherwood's ruling last April that did not find the buyout provision illegal under state corporation law, according to Bloomberg News.
Meister argued before the court that the provision coerced dissidents into voting in favor of the IPO plan because their ownership units were in fact worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“People were bludgeoned into changing their vote from dissenters to assenters,” Meister told the court. Empire State Realty Trust Inc., whose properties include the Empire State Building, sold 71.5 million shares for $13 each on Oct. 1. See story at Bloomberg News.
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