More Way Back Machine

Here is a Bloomberg article that is part profile of B. Wayne Hughes, founder of Public Storage, and part article on large private investors buying single family homes as rentals.  Public Storage raised much of its initial capital in limited partnerships sold through independent broker / dealers.  Public Storage "rolled up" all its partnerships and listed the combined entities on the NYSE sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s.  Most of the rollups of 1980's limited partnerships were disasters for investors - a combined portfolio of crap properties is still a portfolio of crap properties - but the Public Storage and Realty Income Corporation combinations worked out very well.  (Unfortunately, I think most advisors recommended that investors sell their rolledup units as soon as liquidity was available.)