Cousins Properties Inc. (CUZ), a leading real estate investment trust (REIT), has drastically reduced its third quarter dividend in order to conserve cash in the current credit-constrained market. The company has declared a third quarter dividend of $0.15 per share, down from $0.25 in the previous quarter.

The reduction in the quarterly dividend payout was based on the current estimate of taxable income. In order to maintain the REIT standard, companies are required to pay annually at least 90% of the taxable income as shareholder dividends.

Cousins Properties will pay the third quarter dividend in a combination of cash and stock. The cash component would not exceed one-third of the total dividend. Shareholders would have the right to decide on the composition of the dividends.

With the reduction in dividend, the company expects to retain a significant portion of its resources to capitalize on potential investment opportunities surfacing during the current recession.

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Cogdell Spencer ERDMAN, wholly owned subsidiary of Cogdell Spencer, Inc., signed two contracts totaling $88.8 million to construct two Healthcare facilities in Wisconsin. The deal helps solidify the company’s leading role in the Healthcare Real Estate Industry.

The first contract is for $53.9 million and is to construct the St. Mary’s Janesville Hospital, a 160,000 square foot facility. The Hospital will be a full service facility with 50 private patient rooms, an intensive care unit and an emergency room.

The second contract is for $34.9 million and is to construct the Dean Janesville Clinic, a 150,000 square foot outpatient clinic designed to be a multi specialty facility. The clinic will also have retail space incorporated into the design.

Cogdell Spencer ERDMAN will begin construction on both facilities later in 2009, and the estimated completion date is late in 2011. Both will be located in Janesville, WI.

Cogdell

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Vornado contemplates floating own private equity fund

According to a report published in the Wall Street Journal, Vornado Realty Trust (VNO), a real estate investment trust (REIT), is considering plans to create its own private equity fund. The company intends to float the fund to acquire bargain-basement properties, primarily in the markets where it already has a presence.

Based in New York, Vornado acquires, owns, and leases office properties, retail space, and temperature-controlled logistics and refrigerated warehouses. The company owns and manages approximately 100 million square feet of real estate (including pro-rata share of partially owned properties and joint-ventures).

Geographically, Vornado has over 34 million square feet of office space in New York and DC, 22.2 million square feet of retail space in 21 states in the US and Puerto Rico, and 8.9 million square feet of Merchandise Mart space. Besides its properties, the company also has investments in other REITs, industrial

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My most recent post on mall REITs (SPG in particular) got me thinking about Sears Holdings, a company that I disparaged a few weeks ago in a post called, “Unsuccessful Profits.” More particularly, my chart on REIT valuation based on square footage owned made me wonder.

Aas you can tell, price per square foot data can vary quite significantly. Not all square footage is created equal and, ultimately, it’s how you monetize your square footage which really matters. In the case of Sears, though they own a significant amount of retail square footage, the majority is leased to its own businesses which have performed in lackluster fashion to say the least. Despite this, there has to be some assumption of inherent value in the

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Yesterday, Moody's released its commercial real estate index and reported that nationwide prices for all types of commercial real estate (CRE) plunged by 8.6% in April from March and now stand 25.3% below a year ago, and are off 29.5% from their October 2007 peak.The Moody's/REAL CPPI is a repeat sales index constructed very much along the same lines as the Case-Schiller index of residential real estate prices. In the graph below, Calculated Risk (http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/06/cre-and-residential-re-prices.html) has overlaid the Case-Schiller index on the graph from the Moody's report. It clearly appears that CRE prices follow housing prices with about an 18-month lag.This is consistent with other findings that investment in CRE (i.e. new building of offices and stores) follows residential investment by about the same period. While the CRE price decline started later than that for houses, it is happening at a much faster ...

This is the age where politicians get their chance to run up huge debts.  “Politics is about what works,” said Hillary Clinton. At least, we think it was Hillary Clinton. Someone said it. Someone who is an imbecile.

Politics is not about what works, it’s about what you can get away with. And what you can get away with is often exactly what doesn’t work at all.

Our beat is money, here at the Daily Reckoning. We specialize in fraud and folderol. We leave the homicide beat to someone else.

What the US is getting away with, from a financial point of view, in addition to counterfeiting, is very grand larceny on a Super-Madoff scale. It is borrowing trillions of dollars even though it has no way to honestly pay back the money.

Still, so eager are the lenders to part with their money that the yield on the 10-year T-note fell

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Worldwide indexes reclaim that losing feeling,  The skinny on those TARP repayments and two curiously conflicting assessments,Four factories for one McMinimum Wage house and plenty more…

“Are things getting worse or are things getting better?” we wondered aloud in yesterday’s edition of the Rude Awakening.

In today’s edition, we provide a few answers – well, not answers, really…just observations from you, the Rude readership. In the column below, we present a few real-world anecdotes from Rude Awakening readers. This narrow sampling of economic observations is hardly scientific, but it may be illuminating nonetheless.

Before we get into these real-world stories, let’s examine a couple of recent stories from Fantasyland - otherwise known as Wall Street. Seven of America’s largest banks repaid their TARP borrowings to the US Treasury yesterday, in the process providing one more occasion for hopeful investors to proclaim the end of the credit crisis.

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Happy days are here again! Enjoy them while they last… “Optimism builds,” says a headline in the Financial Times. As predicted, the world markets are enjoying a bounce. People who had no idea there was anything wrong with the world financial system two years ago, now say the problem has been fixed.

Who fixed it? The people who had no idea what was wrong with it, of course.

What did they fix it with? The same thing that caused the problem they didn’t see – debt.

Who makes sure it won’t break again? The people who didn’t notice the wheels coming off the last time.

Yesterday, the Dow rose 214 points. Oil closed over $54. Gold ended the day over $900. And dollar sank to $1.33 per euro.

Most interesting…bond yields, though still pathetically low, are rising. The U.S. 10-year note yields more than 3%. The long bond yields more than 4%.

The longer these

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MIAMI, April 30, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Omega Commercial Finance Corporation (Pink Sheets:OCFN) has released the following statement to its shareholders:

In keeping with our pledge to increase transparency and improve the effectiveness of communication with our investor community, we are initiating a series of periodic updates to help keep potential investors and shareholders informed about our Company’s progress. The Board, management and staff of Omega Commercial Finance Corp. deeply appreciate your ongoing faith and support and want you to know that we are working hard to bring opportunities to this enterprise for sustainable, long term growth.

We have experienced a very challenging year filled with many failures from corporate America. However, the Omega management team firmly believes that the initiatives taken in 2008 and 2009 are the first of many strategic implementations that are currently being conducted, in order to build corporate and shareholder value. The company was able

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A.F. analysts clash… can the niche retailer survive the credit crunch?…Crisis begets steadfast citizens… Americans move about the country at lowest rate in 47 years…A long-term outlook on the American stock market…The latest sector to catch Chris Mayer’s attention…U.K. launches historic spending spree, hikes taxes to 50%..

If the credit-strapped suburban mall culture is truly on the rocks, how long do you think this can survive:

Lady Amaranth, Goth Temptress

Among our analysts, a debate brews at the heart of the current consumer conundrum: “Cutting-edge apparel retailer Hot Topic,” writes Wayne Burritt, about the purveyor of goth clothing and lip-piercing paraphernalia, “is loaded with attractive fundamentals and technicals, while its call options offer an oversized premium. Hot Topic is a mall and Web-based specialty retailer that has a proven track record in the often-fickle teen

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