Misstatement

What a difference a few weeks makes.  The New York Times made a big misstatement in its non-traded REIT slam article from yesterday.  The article stated that American Realty Capital Trust (ARCT) recently valued its shares at $6.62 per share.  Here is the quote:

But nontraded trusts are now required to update their net asset values every 18 months after their initial offering, and their own disclosures to the S.E.C. show their values dropping well below the price at which the shares were originally issued. For example, one REIT, American Realty Capital Trust, recently reported that its shares, which had been sold at $10, were now worth $6.62. The sponsor, American Realty Capital of New York, raised $2.3 billion in the last 18 months, according to its chief executive, Nicholas S. Schorsch. Other sponsors, including Cole, have reported similar declines in share price, public records show.

ARCT closed its primary offering last week at $10 per share, and is not required to make a new valuation for eighteen months.  ARCT did not recently revalue itself at $6.62, and made an 8-K filing this morning stating so and has asked the NYT to correct its error.   ARCT raised its full offering of $1.5 billion, with over $300 million coming in June alone.  I wonder what, if any, impact the article would have had if it was printed in early June?   Did the NYT confuse ARCT with another REIT?

Update:  The New York Times corrected the above article and added this language to the end of the article:

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 20, 2011

An earlier version of this article misstated the share price for American Realty Capital Trust.  It was sold at $10 a share, but the current value is not known. It is not $6.62, which is the REIT’s net tangible book value.