In October 2005, Newkirk became a publicly-traded company. Michael Ashner, Newkirk's Chairman and CEO, a long-time friend and a talented deal guy, has run this netlease business from the beginning. Simplistically, our investment here, which was initiated in 1998 and grew to a max of approximately $170 million, was, over time, more than fully repaid from the proceeds of multiple re-financings and operations. Today, our entire investment has been returned plus $30 million, and we own listed securities with a trading value of $186 million. Joe, rather precisely, calculates that our $216 million profit here produced a return on investment of 21.8%.

 

GMH(15) hit a speed bump. Please refer to their press releases and securities filings available at www.gmhcommunities.com. We bridged this company to its November 2004 IPO. The stock, which reached a high of $16.77, was $11.64 at the end of first quarter 2006 and is now trading at $12.33. Our investment here consists of two tranches— 8,038,000 units and common shares at a cost basis of $8.03 and a warrant to purchase 6,085,180 common shares at a strike price of $8.22. Currently, our actual cash investment is $65 million, which, to put in perspective, is $.38 per Vornado share. Our current mark-to-market economic profit on these units and shares is $34.6 million and our unrealized gain on the warrant is $19.1 million.(16) The warrant expires on May 2nd and may be exercised or net settled. Our shares and units represent 11.3% of the company which would increase to 18.1% including the warrants.



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(15) GMH Communities Trust (NYSE: GCT), a student and military housing company.
(16) We carry the units and shares owned on the equity method, which at March 31, 2006 was $88.3 million (compared to a March 31, 2006 market value of $93.6 million). We carry the unexercised warrant as a derivative, marked-to-market at its embedded profit of $18.2 million or $3.05 per share at March 31, 2006, after assumed dilution of $877,000.

In addition, we received $16.6 million for making a bridge loan to GMH from July 20, 2004 to November 3, 2004 which had a maximum outstanding balance of $113.8 million.