Vornado Dumps The Rest Of Its J.C. Penney Shares

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Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE:VNO) has officially sold off its remaining shares of J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP). The move comes about a week after the REIT’s CEO resigned from the department store chain’s board and announced plans to exit the company.

Vornado Dumps The Rest Of Its J.C. Penney Shares

Vornado sells 13.4 million J.C. Penney shares

Matt Jarzemsky of The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday that the company agreed to sell off the rest of its 13.4 million shares of J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP). Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) started offering the shares for sale last night at a value of $13.05 to $13.10 a share. At this point we don’t know how much Citigroup paid for those shares, but it did buy the entire block of them from Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE:VNO). The bank then started to reoffer it to investors, serving as underwriter for the deal.

Under closing prices earlier this week, the block of shares would be valued at around $178 million.

J.C. Penney still in a tug of war with investors

Vornado’s exit of J.C. Penney comes not long after Bill Ackman also resigned from the board and announced plans to sell all of his shares. He previously held an 18 percent stake in the retailer, and his exit came abruptly in the midst of a public spat with the company’s board over the speed of its CEO search. The company said last week though that the exit of Vornado CEO Steven Roth last week was not the result of a disagreement with its board.

But even though neither Roth nor Ackman is interested in J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) again, there are still plenty of other big investors who are. Perry Capital revealed a major stake in the company last month. Also George Soros’ fund also revealed that it held a 9 percent stake and, at the time, was the company’s second biggest shareholder.

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