No Conflict, Say Principals in RealtyIQ's Rainmaker Deal

RealtyIQ, an on-line provider of real estate data and content, has acquired Rainmaker Publications Group, publisher of Realty Stock Review and Property magazine. Both periodicals will continue to be edited by Barry Vinocur, chairman and CEO of Rainmaker. Vinocur also took on the title of senior VP of editorial content for RealtyIQ. The Review deals with property-linked stocks, as does Property, which is targeted to pension-plan sponsors, money managers and financial advisors.

Frontline Capital Group, headed by Scott Rechler, is a major investor in RealtyIQ. And he is president and co-CEO of Reckson Associates, a real estate investment trust.

The question is whether this relationship will influence Vinocur’s objectivity.

“Can I remain unbiased in my reporting on real estate? Absolutely,” Vinocur told GlobeSt.com. “Can I remain unbiased about Scott or things he’s involved with? We’ve had long discussions about that and I believe it’s a manageable situation. And I intend to discuss the relationship with my subscribers and how it impacts what we do,” he notes, adding, “We’re going to talk about a lot more than publicly traded real estate companies.”

RealtyIQ CEO Bruce Weissberg was unavailable for comment, but another company source told GlobeSt.com that “Walt Disney owns ABC and they report on news about Disney and AOL and they’re impartial about what they report. Barry’s reputation for many years has been as an impartial straight shooter. He plans to continue on that road.” Another industry source GlobeSt.com contacted also expresses the possibility that the conflict is a non-issue, if when Vinocur writes about Reckson he mentions it is an investor in the firm.

Vinocur will continue as a contributor to the Ground Floor column of Barron’s magazine. Formerly editorial director of Dow Jones Financial Publishing, in his new post he will oversee the development of the editorial component of RealtyIQ, although planned changes were not revealed. Neither were terms of the transaction.