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Related Person Transactions
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2013
Related Person Transactions  
Related Person Transactions

Note 15.  Related Person Transactions

 

We have no employees.  Personnel and various services we require to operate our business are provided to us by RMR.  We have two agreements with RMR to provide management and administrative services to us: (1) a business management agreement, which relates to our business generally, and (2) a property management agreement, which relates to our property level operations.

 

Under our business management agreement with RMR, we acknowledge that RMR also provides management services to other companies, which include GOV and SIR.  One of our Managing Trustees, Mr. Barry Portnoy, is Chairman, majority owner and an employee of RMR.  Our other Managing Trustee, Mr. Adam Portnoy, who is also our President, is the son of Mr. Barry Portnoy, and an owner, President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of RMR.  Each of our other executive officers is also an officer of RMR.  GOV’s and SIR’s executive officers are officers of RMR.  A majority of our Independent Trustees also serve as independent trustees of other public companies to which RMR provides management services.  Mr. Barry Portnoy serves as a managing director or managing trustee of those companies and Mr. Adam Portnoy serves as a managing trustee of a majority of those companies.  In addition, officers of RMR serve as officers of those companies.

 

Pursuant to our business management agreement with RMR, we incurred business management fees of $9,844 and $11,057 for the three months ended September 30, 2013 and 2012, respectively, and $33,800 and $32,087 for the nine months ended September 30, 2013 and 2012, respectively.  These amounts are included in general and administrative expenses and income from discontinued operations, as appropriate, in our condensed consolidated financial statements.

 

In connection with our property management agreement with RMR, we incurred property management and construction supervision fees of $7,919 and $8,593 for the three months ended September 30, 2013 and 2012, respectively, and $24,903 and $24,483 for the nine months ended September 30, 2013 and 2012, respectively.  These amounts are included in operating expenses or have been capitalized, as appropriate, in our condensed consolidated financial statements.

 

The business management fees, property management fees and construction supervision fees that we incurred during the nine months ended September 30, 2013 and 2012 include fees incurred by SIR through July 2, 2013, when SIR was a consolidated subsidiary of ours.

 

On September 20, 2013, we and RMR agreed to restructure the base business management and incentive fees payable to RMR under our business management agreement beginning in 2014, as follows:

 

·                  The base business management fees we pay to RMR will be calculated on the basis of the lower of: (i) gross historical cost of our U.S. real estate assets, as defined, or (ii) our total market capitalization.  Market capitalization will include the market value of our common shares, plus the liquidation preference of preferred shares, if any, and the principal amount of debt.  The market value of our common shares will be calculated based on the average shares outstanding multiplied by the average closing share price during the period in which the fees are earned.

 

·                  10% of the base business management fees we pay to RMR will be paid in our common shares.  The amount of our common shares granted as part of the base business management fee will be calculated based on the average closing share price during the period in which the fees are earned.

 

·                  The annual incentive fees which may be earned by RMR will be calculated based upon total returns realized by our common shareholders (i.e., share price appreciation plus dividends) in excess of benchmarks.  The benchmarks will be set by our Compensation Committee, which is comprised solely of Independent Trustees, and will be disclosed in our annual meeting proxy statements.  Incentive fees will be paid in our common shares which will vest over a multiyear period and will be subject to a “claw back” in the event of certain material restatements of our financial results.

 

·                  The annual management fee for foreign assets will be unchanged.

 

We, along with RMR, certain of our officers and current and former Trustees, have been named as defendants in a number of complaints seeking monetary damages and declaratory and injunctive relief, including, among other things, complaints filed by or on behalf of Corvex/Related.  In connection with such litigation, we have agreed to indemnify our present or former Trustees or officers who are made or threatened to be made parties to a legal proceeding by reason of their service in that capacity and have also agreed to indemnify RMR for certain claims brought against RMR in its capacity as our business and property manager.

 

MacarthurCook Fund Management Limited, or MacarthurCook, previously provided us with business and property management services with respect to our investments in Australia.  Our contract with MacarthurCook terminated on January 31, 2013, and on that date we entered into a business and property management agreement, or the Australia Management Agreement, with RMR Australia Asset Management Pty Limited, or RMR Australia, for the benefit of CWH Australia Trust (formerly the MacarthurCook Industrial Property Fund), a subsidiary of ours.  The terms of the Australia Management Agreement are substantially similar to the terms of the management agreement we had with MacarthurCook.  RMR Australia is owned by our Managing Trustees and it has been granted an Australian financial services license by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission.  Similar to our prior arrangement with respect to fees we paid to MacarthurCook, RMR has agreed to waive half of the fees payable by us under our property management agreement with RMR and half of the business management fees otherwise payable by us under our business management agreement with RMR related to real estate investments that are subject to the Australia Management Agreement for so long as the Australia Management Agreement is in effect and we or any of our subsidiaries are paying the fees under that agreement.  Pursuant to the Australia Management Agreement, the aggregate business and property management fees we recognized during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2013 were $432 and $1,197, respectively.  The Australia Management Agreement was approved by our Compensation Committee, which is composed only of our Independent Trustees.

 

GOV was formerly our 100% owned subsidiary.  Our two Managing Trustees, Mr. Barry Portnoy and Mr. Adam Portnoy, are also managing trustees of GOV, and our President, Mr. Adam Portnoy, was the President of GOV from its formation in 2009 until January 2011.  RMR provides management services to both us and GOV.

 

In 2009, GOV completed an initial public offering pursuant to which GOV ceased to be a majority owned subsidiary of ours.  In connection with this offering, we and GOV entered into a transaction agreement that governs our separation from and relationship with GOV.  Pursuant to this transaction agreement, among other things, we granted GOV the right of first refusal to acquire any property owned by us that we determine to divest, if the property is then majority leased to a government tenant.  This right of first refusal applies in the event of an indirect sale of any such properties as a result of a change of control of us.

 

Until March 15, 2013, we were GOV’s largest shareholder.  On March 15, 2013, we sold all of our 9,950,000 common shares of GOV in a public offering for net proceeds (after deducting underwriters’ discounts and commissions and expenses) of $239,576 and we realized a gain of $66,293.  In connection with this public offering, on March 11, 2013, we entered into a registration agreement with GOV under which we agreed to pay all expenses incurred by GOV relating to the registration and sale of our GOV common shares.  We incurred $310 of reimbursements payable to GOV pursuant to this agreement.  In addition, under the registration agreement, we and GOV entered cross indemnity agreements with respect to our respective actions associated with our offering of GOV shares.  GOV agreed to indemnify CWH, our officers, Trustees and controlling persons, and we agreed to indemnify GOV and GOV’s officers, trustees and controlling persons, against certain liabilities related to the public offering, including liabilities under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act; and we and GOV agreed to reimburse payments that the other may make in respect of those liabilities.

 

SIR was formerly our 100% owned subsidiary.  We are SIR’s largest shareholder and, until July 2, 2013, SIR was one of our consolidated subsidiaries.  As of September 30, 2013, we owned 22,000,000 common shares of SIR, which represented approximately 44.2% of SIR’s outstanding common shares.  Our two Managing Trustees, Mr. Barry Portnoy and Mr. Adam Portnoy, are also managing trustees of SIR, and Mr. John Popeo, our Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer, also serves as the Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer of SIR.  In addition, one of our Independent Trustees, Mr. William Lamkin, is an independent trustee of SIR.  RMR provides management services to both us and SIR.

 

On March 12, 2012, SIR completed an initial public offering pursuant to which it issued 9,200,000 of its common shares for net proceeds (after deducting underwriters’ discounts and commissions and expenses) of $180,814.  SIR applied those net proceeds, along with proceeds from drawings under SIR’s revolving credit facility, to repay in full a $400,000 demand promissory note that we received from SIR on February 16, 2012, along with 22,000,000 SIR common shares (including SIR common shares that had been previously issued to us in connection with SIR’s formation), in exchange for our transfer to SIR of 79 properties (251 separate buildings or land parcels with a combined approximately 21,400,000 rentable square feet).  SIR also reimbursed us for costs that we incurred in connection with SIR’s organization and preparation for its initial public offering.

 

In connection with the SIR IPO, we and SIR entered into a transaction agreement that governs our separation from and relationship with SIR.  The transaction agreement provides that, among other things, (1) the current assets and liabilities of the 79 properties that we transferred to SIR, as of the time of closing of the SIR IPO, were settled between us and SIR so that we will retain all pre-closing current assets and liabilities and SIR will assume all post-closing current assets and liabilities and (2) SIR will indemnify us with respect to any liability relating to any property transferred by us to SIR, including any liability which relates to periods prior to SIR’s formation, other than the pre-closing current assets and current liabilities that we retained with respect to the 79 transferred properties.

 

On March 25, 2013, we entered into a registration agreement with SIR, pursuant to which SIR agreed to, among other things, file a registration statement with respect to an offering of up to all of the 22,000,000 common shares of SIR that we own, and we agreed to pay all expenses incurred by SIR relating to the registration and sale of the shares in an offering.  SIR’s obligation to register the shares for resale in an offering is subject to certain conditions and may be terminated in certain circumstances, in each case, as described in the registration agreement.  We incurred $636 of reimbursements payable to SIR pursuant to this agreement.  In connection with this registration agreement, we and SIR entered cross indemnity agreements with respect to our respective actions associated with our offering of SIR shares: SIR agreed to indemnify us, our officers, Trustees and controlling persons, and we agreed to indemnify SIR and SIR’s officers, trustees and controlling persons, against certain liabilities in connection with an offering, including liabilities under the Securities Act; and we and SIR agreed to reimburse payments that the other may make in respect of those liabilities.  SIR now has an effective registration statement on Form S-3, which permits resales of SIR’s shares by selling shareholders, pursuant to which, and subject to the terms of the registration agreement, we may be able to sell our SIR common shares in a registered offering.

 

We, RMR, GOV, SIR and four other companies to which RMR provides management services each currently own 12.5% of AIC, an Indiana insurance company.  All of our Trustees, all of the trustees and directors of the other publicly held AIC shareholders and nearly all of the directors of RMR currently serve on the board of directors of AIC.  RMR provides management and administrative services to AIC pursuant to a management and administrative services agreement with AIC.  As of September 30, 2013, we have invested $5,209 in AIC since AIC’s formation in 2008.  We use the equity method to account for this investment because we believe that we have significant influence over AIC because all of our Trustees are also directors of AIC.  For the period that SIR was both a shareholder of AIC and our consolidated subsidiary, from May 2012 until July 2, 2013, our condensed consolidated financial statements include SIR’s equity investment interest in AIC.  We and the other shareholders of AIC have purchased property insurance providing $500,000 of coverage pursuant to an insurance program arranged by AIC and with respect to which AIC is a reinsurer of certain coverage amounts.  This program was modified and extended in June 2013 for a one year term, and we (excluding SIR) paid a premium, including taxes and fees, of $5,984 in connection with that renewal, which amount may be adjusted from time to time as we acquire or dispose of properties that are included in this program.  We periodically consider the possibilities for expanding our insurance relationships with AIC to include other types of insurance and may in the future participate in additional insurance offerings AIC may provide or arrange.  We may invest additional amounts in AIC in the future if the expansion of this insurance business requires additional capital, but we are not obligated to do so.  By participating in this insurance business with RMR and the other companies to which RMR provides management services, we expect that we may benefit financially by possibly reducing our insurance expenses or by realizing our pro rata share of any profits of this insurance business.

 

Effective July 2013, we, RMR, GOV, SIR and three other companies to which RMR provides management services purchased from an unrelated third party insurer a combined directors’ and officers’ liability insurance policy providing $10,000 of aggregate coverage.  We paid a premium of approximately $133 in connection with this policy.