What Happened to Columbia Property Trust (Wells REIT II)? $10 Shares, a 4-for-1 Split, and $4.83 of PIMCO Cash Each

Wells REIT II in one paragraph

Wells Real Estate Investment Trust II was the second big office REIT from Wells Real Estate Funds of Norcross, Georgia, sold through brokers to retail investors. It never had a market price. Its 10-K described the $10.00 offering price, “ignoring purchase price discounts for certain categories of purchasers”, as the estimated value of a share as late as December 31, 2008. Money kept coming in until the third offering closed in June 2010. By early 2013 it had 126,901 stockholders of record and about 545.6 million shares.

The first real number: $7.47, then $7.33

The first estimate based on appraisals, rather than on the offering price, came in November 2011. With Altus Group consulting, the board set it at $7.47 a share as of September 30, 2011. The letter to investors said the figure “does not necessarily represent the current market value of your shares or the amount you could expect to receive if we were to publicly list Wells REIT II”. A year later the estimate was $7.33, and the quarterly distribution was cut from $0.125 to $0.095 a share.

The redemption program paid much less than those values. In October 2008, redeemed shares averaged $9.28. From late 2011, an “ordinary” redemption (one not due to death or disability) was paid at $5.50. The November 2012 letter put it at $6.25, and the board itself told holders not to use it except in a financial emergency. The charter set a liquidity deadline of October 2015 unless stockholders voted to push it back.

2013: new name, four shares into one, and a $25 tender

On March 1, 2013 Wells REIT II became Columbia Property Trust. It had become self-managed, moved its headquarters to Atlanta, and said Leo Wells had resigned as chairman on December 31, 2012. Then came the step that confuses old statements to this day. The board approved a 4-for-1 reverse stock split, effective August 14, 2013, to “bring the Company's estimated net asset per-share value in line with a more commonly accepted range of per-share values for publicly traded REITs”. Every four $10 shares became one share. If you owned 1,000 shares, you now owned 250, and every per-share figure after August 2013 has to be divided by four to compare it with the $10 you paid.

Trading on the NYSE under CXP began on October 10, 2013. The same day, Columbia started a modified Dutch auction tender offer for up to $300 million of stock at $22.00 to $25.00 a share. It bought 9,362,488 shares at $25.00, about $234 million, and was left with about 124,830,122 shares. In original-share terms the tender paid $6.25 per $10 share, and the stock's fourth-quarter 2013 closing range of $22.16 to $25.07 equals $5.54 to $6.27 (our arithmetic). (Unlike Piedmont in 2010, Columbia did not split its stock into Class A and Class B shares when it listed: the filings show only the reverse split. See our guide to what usually happens when a non-traded REIT lists.)

Dividends after the listing, per original share

2021: an activist, an auction and PIMCO's $19.30

In December 2020 the New York firm Arkhouse sent a nomination notice to replace a majority of Columbia's board with its own six-person slate. The board announced a strategic review in the spring and, per the press release, invited “nearly 90 potential counterparties”. On September 7, 2021 it agreed to sell to funds managed by Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO) for $19.30 a share in cash, $3.9 billion including Columbia's share of debt.

The closing 8-K says “affiliates of funds managed by PIMCO became the stockholders of the Company” and that the acquisition was funded with cash and “new debt financing”. Columbia filed a Form 15 on December 20, 2021 and has filed no reports since. There was no CVR, no stock component and no holdback: former holders got cash, and that was the end of their claim.

After the buyout: the loan that defaulted

The new debt shows up in the bond market. On September 1, 2022 Moody's rated part of CXP Trust 2022-CXP1, a CMBS deal named after Columbia's old ticker. It is backed by part of a floating-rate, interest-only whole mortgage loan of $1,717,842,628 in 21 notes. The collateral is seven cross-collateralized office properties, 2,749,316 square feet in total: three in New York, two in San Francisco, one in Jersey City and one in Boston. The deal's own trust held $484,742,628 of the loan. Even at that point Moody's flagged “high Moody's LTV,floating-rate and interest-only mortgage loan profile” among its concerns (the missing space is in the saved text). Its LTV was 138.0% on the senior loan and 152.1% on the whole first mortgage, with the portfolio 84.5% leased in May 2022.

Neither Moody's nor CREFC names the borrower. Press reports (The Real Deal, February 22, 2023; Bisnow) identified it as PIMCO's Columbia Property Trust, with the same three banks that signed the 2021 debt commitment. The same outlets have since reported loan modifications and further defaults; we cite no figures from them because we could not check them against a primary document. For a former Wells REIT II investor, the key point is timing: the default came 13 months after shareholders were paid. It is a loss for PIMCO's funds and the bondholders, not a claim that former shareholders can make.

What $10,000 at $10 a share became

All in cash, no reinvestment, before taxes. The buyer is assumed to hold every share until the December 2021 buyout. Distributions use the per-share figures in the tables above and the 10-Ks' $0.60 a year for 2005 to 2010.

The year you bought decides most of the result. The capital itself came back as $4,825 per $10,000 whenever you bought, and the distributions were what made up the gap. Two caveats. Many holders used the DRP, which bought more shares (at $7.13 after the 2011 estimate and $7.00 after the 2012 one), so their share counts and totals differ. And holders who sold in the 2013 tender got $6.25 per original share instead of $4.825, but gave up the later dividends.

The original Wells REIT: Piedmont

Wells Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc., the first one (CIK 1042776), took a different route. EDGAR lists it under the Wells name until 2007 and as Piedmont Office Realty Trust until June 2025; today it is Piedmont Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: PDM). It internalized its advisor in April 2007. On January 22, 2010 it did the two-step that Columbia did not: a recapitalization that converted each old share into 1/12 of a share each of Class A, Class B-1, Class B-2 and Class B-3, or one new share for every three old ones (our arithmetic). That took 476,750,419 shares down to about 158,916,806. Class A listed on the NYSE on February 10, 2010, with a public offering at $14.50, or about $4.83 per original Wells REIT share (our arithmetic). The B shares converted to Class A in three steps (August 9, 2010, November 7, 2010 and January 30, 2011) which staggered when old holders' shares became listed stock. Piedmont is still listed. Its current share price is not in the filings we saved, so we do not quote one.

What a former holder can do with this

• Find your basis before you file anything. The filings call 61% of 2011 distributions, 84% of 2012's and 100% of 2013's return of capital, which lowers your cost basis. Your gain or loss on the $19.30 was measured against that adjusted basis, not against $10. If you held shares at the transfer agent (DST), the 2021 cost-basis statement is the document to find.
• Do not count on any further payment from Columbia. The merger paid cash with no CVR or holdback, and the company stopped reporting in December 2021. The 2023 default does not create a claim for former shareholders.
• Check old letters for the split. Any Columbia figure after August 14, 2013 (prices, dividends, the $25 tender, the $19.30) is per post-split share. Divide by four to compare with your $10 shares.
• If you still hold Piedmont, you hold a listed office REIT with its own record, a separate decision from Wells REIT II. If you hold other non-traded REITs from the same era and get a tender offer for them, read our guide to non-traded REIT tender offers first; the tax-loss guide explains how realized losses are used.

FAQ

Sources, read on October 6, 2026: Wells REIT II / Columbia Property Trust Forms 10-K for fiscal 2008 (accession 0001193125-09-068884), 2012 (0001252849-13-000015), 2013 (0001252849-14-000036), 2015 (0001252849-16-000191), 2017 (0001252849-18-000029), 2019 (0001252849-20-000038) and 2020 (0001252849-21-000032); Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2021 (0001252849-21-000112); 8-Ks with exhibits of November 9, 2011 (0001252849-11-000053), November 9, 2012 (0001252849-12-000030), March 1, 2013 (0001252849-13-000018), August 7 and 15, 2013 (0001252849-13-000048, 0001252849-13-000051), October 10, 2013 (0001193125-13-395964), November 18, 2013 (0001193125-13-444600), September 7, 2021 (0001104659-21-113163), December 2, 2021 (0001252849-21-000125) and December 8, 2021 (0001252849-21-000127); the definitive merger proxy of October 26, 2021 (0001140361-21-035506); SEC EDGAR submission records for CIKs 1252849 and 1042776; Moody's rating action on CXP Trust 2022-CXP1 of September 1, 2022; CREFC's Update on CMBS Loan Performance for July 2025, February 2026 and July 2026; Piedmont Office Realty Trust's 10-K for fiscal 2009 (0001193125-10-058371) and prospectus of February 9, 2010 (0001193125-10-028313). The Real Deal and Bisnow are cited for context only. Per-original-share figures, totals and returns are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.