Abstract
Despite their explosive growth since the 1990s (as measured by both number of firms and market capitalization), approximately 38% of equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) are still led by their founders. This is almost four times the case of the largest public US firms and truly an atypical instance for growing firms. From an agency perspective such high proportion of REIT led founders could have a great impact on REITs' corporate governance, given founders' high and undiversified nature of ownership, their historical, reputational, and emotional ties to the firm and their significant control over directors and management postings. This article examines the structure of a sample of equity REIT boards for the 1999-2012 period. The analysis indicates that REIT boards in which a founder is the CEO have fewer outside directors and typically are led by them compared to boards in which the CEO is not a founder.