CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTIONS
Background
In 2018 and 2019,
• | Matthew J. Gould, Chairman of our Board of Directors, served as a Senior Vice President and director of BRT Apartments Corp., a real estate investment trust focused on the ownership, operation and development of multi-family properties and listed on the NYSE, as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the managing general partner of Gould Investors (which owns approximately 9.1% of our outstanding shares of common stock), and as a Vice President of Majestic; |
• | Fredric H. Gould, Vice Chairman of our Board of Directors, served as a director of BRT Apartments, as Chairman of the Board of Directors and sole stockholder of Majestic and as a director and sole stockholder of Georgetown Partners, the managing general partner of Gould Investors; and |
• | Jeffrey A. Gould, a Director and Senior Vice President of our company, served as a Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of BRT Apartments, as a Senior Vice President and Director of the managing general partner of Gould Investors and as a Vice President of Majestic. |
Matthew J. Gould and Jeffrey A. Gould are brothers and the sons of Fredric H. Gould. In addition, David W. Kalish, Mark H. Lundy, Israel Rosenzweig and Isaac Kalish, each of whom is an executive officer of our company, are officers of BRT Apartments and of the managing general partner of Gould Investors. Isaac Kalish is David Kalish’s son and Steven Rosenzweig and Alon Rosenzweig, sons of Israel Rosenzweig, are employed by our affiliates.
Related Party Transactions
Pursuant to the compensation and services agreement, Majestic provides us the services of affiliated executive, administrative, legal, accounting, clerical and property management personnel, as well as property acquisition, sale and lease consulting and brokerage services, consulting services in respect to mortgage financings and construction supervisory services. In accordance with the compensation and services agreement, we paid Majestic $2,826,000 and $2,745,000 in 2019 and 2018, respectively, which included $1,307,000 and $1,226,000 for property management services, respectively. In 2020, we will pay Majestic $1,746,000 and in addition, for its property management services, will pay 1.5% and 2.0% of the rental payments (including tenant reimbursements) actually received by us from net lease tenants and operating lease tenants, respectively. We will not pay Majestic property management fees with respect to properties managed by third parties. Based on our property portfolio at December 31, 2019, we estimate that the property management fee in 2020 will be approximately $1,314,000. Majestic is wholly owned by the vice chairman of our board, and certain of our part-time officers, including our part-time named executive officers, are officers of, and receive compensation from, Majestic.
Pursuant to the compensation and services agreement, we also paid Majestic $216,000 in each of 2019 and 2018 (and will pay $275,000 in 2020) as reimbursement for our share of direct office expenses, including rent, telephone, postage, computer services, internet usage and supplies.
Majestic paid an aggregate of $1,170,000 and $1,248,000 to the following officers (some of whom are also officers of Majestic and other affiliated companies) for the services they performed on our behalf in 2019 and 2018, respectively: Matthew J. Gould, $309,000 and $332,000; David W. Kalish, $165,000 and $177,000; Jeffrey A. Gould, $309,000 and $332,000; Mark H. Lundy, $207,000 and $228,000; Israel Rosenzweig, $49,000 and $56,000; Isaac Kalish, $80,000 and $77,000; and Steven Rosenzweig, $51,000 and $46,000. These individuals also received compensation in 2019 and 2018 from our other affiliates, including BRT Apartments and Gould Investors, as well as other entities wholly owned by Fredric H. Gould, none of which provided services to us in 2019 or 2018.
We obtain our property insurance in conjunction with Gould Investors and its affiliates and in 2019 and 2018, we reimbursed Gould $1,025,000 and $912,000, respectively, for our proportionate share of the insurance premiums. We believe that we secure more favorable rates by obtaining property insurance on such basis.