Land & Buildings Withdraws Director Nomination at Brookdale

Business Wire 8-Oct-2019 5:00 PM

- Disappointed by Brookdale's Ongoing Entrenchment Tactics but Believes Land & Buildings' Engagement to Date has Brought About Much-Needed Improvements –

– Will Continue to Closely Monitor Company's Strategic, Operational and Governance Progress and Take Appropriate Action if Needed –

Land & Buildings Investment Management LLC (together with its affiliates, "Land & Buildings") today announced it has withdrawn its director nomination in connection with the Brookdale Senior Living Inc. (NYSE:BKD) ("Brookdale" or the "Company") Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the "Annual Meeting"). Land & Buildings' Founder & CIO, Jonathan Litt, issued the following statement in connection with this announcement:

"Brookdale's current Board and management have consistently demonstrated to us that they will do anything and everything to entrench themselves. This attitude is unfortunate and represents a true disservice to shareholders. However, while we view the conditional nature of the Board Chairmanship transition as the epitome of bad corporate governance, we support Guy Sansone ultimately becoming Chairman of the Board. Recent conversations with our fellow investors have reinforced our confidence in Mr. Sansone and we are hopeful that he can succeed where others have failed and actually right the ship at Brookdale.

In light of this, we have decided that the best path forward at this time is to withdraw our nomination. We are extremely grateful for the support of many of our fellow Brookdale shareholders throughout this process and we will continue to closely monitor the situation at Brookdale over the course of the next year – and take appropriate action as necessary.

We continue to believe that our nominee, James ("Jay") F. Flaherty III, would have been an ideal addition to the Board of Brookdale. I have known Jay for 20 years and can attest that he has a very high level of integrity, an incredible focus on creating shareholder value (i.e. 14% annualized over 11 years while Chairman and CEO of HCP, Inc.) and a commitment to best-in-class corporate governance.

Our public and private engagement with Brookdale's Board and management over nearly three years has helped push the Company to make specific improvements that we believe would not have occurred without our involvement. These include adding Mr. Sansone to the Company's nominee slate and providing a path for him to become Chairman of the Board, instituting a phased-in de-staggering of the Board, and restructuring certain leases. We are hopeful that Mr. Sansone can make further progress on real estate monetization and improving transactions with landlords to benefit Brookdale shareholders.

The bottom line is that Brookdale must now focus on doing more than just the bare minimum and seek to implement changes that are consistent with best-in-class corporate governance and that put the Company on a path towards shareholder value creation. Now that the Company is clearly in the spotlight of its investors, we urge them to act in good faith and represent the best interests of all shareholders going forward."

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191008005933/en/