Prime Group's Michael Reschke

Ouster. A failed takeover attempt of the REIT he helped create. Michael W. Reschke has taken his share of media hits in the past few months, but the chairman of the board and CEO of Prime Group Inc., the private, Chicago-based real estate investment and development concern, says that all is not what it appears to be. GlobeSt.com offered him a chance to tell his side of the story and, indeed, it’s been a bloody one. Recently, a bid for spin-off company Prime Group Realty Trust from Reschke’s private firm and another investor was punctured by a competitive offer from the Lightstone Group, which already has control of the retail REIT that bears the Prime name. The validity of the original Prime/Mansur Investment Partners bid, which included $122 million in financing and the payment of a cash deposit of $6.5 million, is currently in the courts. But within legal restrictions, Reschke wants to set the record straight. Before he does that, one point that we can correct for the record is the question of his ouster from the REIT. In SEC documents filed on April 10, 2002, Prime Group Realty states that Reschke resigned from his post. The rest of the story will come from Reschke himself. Read on.

GlobeSt.com: To start from the very top, explain your relationship with the public and private Prime companies.

Reschke: I just want to let you know up front that my answers at this time have to be limited to information that is in the public record, but the Prime Group Inc. is a private company I founded in 1981. It was the predecessor in interest to Prime Group Realty Trust and Prime Group Realty LP, which is the public company. We contributed our office portfolio to the public company in 1997 when we went public.