Tony Thompson, the former chairman of Santa Ana-based Grubb & Ellis Co., said on Thursday he’s unhappy with the real estate investor and brokerage’s performance and is seeking re-appointment to the company’s board.
“I have watched in shock over the past three months as the company’s stock price has plunged nearly 42%, losing approximately 21% of its value in the last three days alone,” Thompson said in a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Grubb & Ellis currently counts a market value of about $265 million.
Thompson is Grubb’s second-largest shareholder, with a 14% stake. He stepped down from the board and his chairman seat in early 2008, after his former company, NNN Realty Advisors, acquired Grubb & Ellis in a reverse merger.
NNN Realty, the parent company of real estate investor Triple Net Properties, since has renamed the company under the better known Grubb & Ellis name.
Thompson started up a real estate firm, Irvine-based Thompson National Properties LLC, a few months ago.
Grubb & Ellis has announced “poor results, been wracked by management turnover, and suffered an expensive and embarrassing setback when the special purpose acquisition vehicle that it sponsored unceremoniously failed,” Thompson said in the regulatory filing.
Among recent personnel changes, this week saw the departure of Robert Osbrink, who since 2004 had run much of Grubb & Ellis’ national brokerage operations out of the company’s Newport Beach office.
Grubb & Ellis said it had received Thompson’s letter and would respond in due course.
