ACR is a commercial REIT run by a private asset manager called ACRES. The REIT is trading at 0.5x book value so the managers of the REIT are having some trouble raising new capital because selling shares below book is heavily dilutive. If you look at the REIT, you will see that it is unusual in that it has not paid a dividend since 2019. REIT investors are obviously avoiding it for that reason. Management has been keeping the capital for internal use instead.
To try to fix the situation, the private asset management company is going to merge with the public REIT. This will mean that the fee revenue stream from the $2B of assets under management will be part of the REIT.
There is real potential here for the valuation of the public company to move substantially higher if the combined company gets valued as 2 businesses instead of as a pure REIT.
This is small, obscure REIT so I do not think the larger investment community has really focused on the change happening at the REIT holding company.
The stock is $14, down from $23 as recently as May.