Stamford, CT-based Land & Buildings has withdrawn the name of its founder and chief investment officer, Jonathan Litt, as a nominee for the Brookdale Senior Living Board of Directors.
The registered investment manager gave no reason for the withdrawal in a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Land & Buildings continues to nominate former NorthStar Healthcare Income and HCP CEO James F. Flaherty III, who now is managing partner of investment firm Corby 2.0.
Land & Buildings said it notified Brentwood, TN-based Brookdale of the change on Friday, the same day it filed an amendment to the preliminary proxy statement it had filed with the SEC on Sept. 3.
A Brookdale spokeswoman told McKnight’s Senior Living that the company had no comment on the new filing.
The nation’s largest senior living provider previously announced two board nominations of its own, passing on Land & Buildings’ choices of Litt and Flaherty. Brookdale’s nominees are Vicki Freed, senior vice president of sales, trade support and service at Royal Caribbean International, and Guy Sansone, a managing director and chairman of the Healthcare Industry Group at global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal.
Land & Buildings said it plans to use its proxy to vote for Flaherty and “also the candidate who has been nominated by the Company other than Victoria L. Freed.”
The activist shareholder, which said in the filings that the board elections are “a referendum on the company’s historical underperformance,” owns approximately 4% of Brookdale’s outstanding shares of common stock.
The board elections will occur at Brookdale’s annual shareholder meeting, the date of which has not been announced.
