From the Wall Street Journal:

When Post Properties Inc. put itself on the selling block earlier this year, no buyers emerged. Now the company has unveiled its Plan B: restructure itself for growth.

Post, an Atlanta-based residential landlord that owns more than 20,000 mostly upscale apartments, outlined last month a plan designed to downsize and streamline the company. The strategy includes selling an estimated $500 million of property — eight sites, marking the biggest asset sale since its founding in 1971 — and using the proceeds to buy back stock, reduce debt and, potentially, issue a special dividend to shareholders.

Post has also whittled the bloated and criticized development pipeline — previously estimated at $1 billion — and is taking a break from the condo business, which it entered at the residential peak. “It’s more of a go-forward plan, I suppose, than a turnaround plan,” said David P. Stockert, Post’s president and chief executive. “We’re moving on.”

There are a lot of what-ifs in the in the troubled Atlanta apartment developer’s plan: what if the economy continues to sour? What if the problems in the commercial real estate market mean that finding a buyer is difficult to impossible? What if Post isn’t able to sell at the price it wants? Still, the desire to raise capital in the face of stiff economic headwinds is an admirable goal - and may finally result in that purchaser for the company as a whole that Post has been desperately seeking.

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