PRS REIT PLC - Manchester, England-based real estate investment trust - Promises to speak with a disgruntled group of shareholders but doesn’t immediately call the general meeting that the group is demanding. Last week, Harwood Capital Management Ltd said a group of five investors including itself, holding just over 17% of PRS REIT, had served a requisition for an extraordinary general meeting. The group want to remove Non-Executive Chair Stephen Smith and Non-Executive Director Steffan Francis and replace them with Robert Naylor and Christopher Mills. Mills is the majority shareholder of Harwood Capital Management. The group says it wants the two new directors and the three remaining board members to review options to return value to shareholders. PRS REIT last week confirmed receiving the letter, while noting that Ruffer LLP and Asset Value Investors Ltd, together holding a further 1.6% stake, intend to vote with the Harwood-led group.

On Monday, PRS REIT says it will meet with the requisitioning shareholders to ‘seek a resolution in the interests of all shareholders’. The company notes that three board members, including Smith and Francis, are coming up to nine years on the board, but it says it wants an ‘orderly transition’ to new board members, saying its Nomination Committee will run a ‘fair, transparent and considered process’ to do so.

‘The board fully acknowledges and shares the frustration raised by the requisitioning shareholders and other investors around the discount to NAV and a share price performance that does not reflect the strong operational performance and opportunity of the business,’ PRS REIT says. However, the company says the board has not been ‘complacent’ and continually reviews actions to address the discount.

Current stock price: 94.81 pence, up 0.2% in London on Monday

12-month change: up 34%

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