It was almost a year ago that MREIT first talked about diversifying its portfolio with some retail assets, and while shareholders would obviously prefer to have had this deal completed in the first half of the year, late is better than never. Unfortunately for MREIT holders, nothing has changed. At its heart, this is just a press release that reiterates MREIT’s interest in acquiring retail assets. There’s no approved deal, and in fact, just more hype about MEG’s massive bag of commercial real estate and half-massive portfolio of mall assets. I’m not an MREIT shareholder, but if I were, I’d obviously prefer my management team to spend the REIT’s value on acquiring high-value mall assets as opposed to a massive batch of commercial office buildings amid the long-term decline of the commercial sector. MREIT shareholders are basically flat (excluding dividends) in terms of stock price action since that original announcement was made, far below its non-Villar office/mall combo rivals like AREIT (+8% since November 2024) and RCR (+26% since November 2024).