The best proxy for operating company investment returns is the return from private equity capital investments. Per Cambridge Associates, LLC, a financial research and advisory firm, the average annual return for private equity investments for the 10 year period ended December 2013 was 13.97%. The average annual return from investing in commercial real estate can be viewed through data provided by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, (NCREIF), a nonprofit provider of institutional real estate investment data and the FTSE-NAREIT All Equity Index, which is an index of the return of all public equity real estate investment trusts. NCREIF provides a quarterly property index which is a time series composite total rate of return measure of investment performance of a very large pool of individual commercial real estate properties acquired in the private market for investment purposes. The NCREIF average annual return for the same 10 year period ended December 2013 was 8.64% and the FTSE-NAREIT average annual return for the 10 year period was 8.61%.

Therefore, the realized return in private equity at 13.97% is greater than the 8.64% (NCREIF) or 8.61% (NAREIT) return in commercial real estate and companies should dispose of their real estate and reinvest the proceeds in their business. Operating companies should be able to increase their investor return by selling real estate assets and redeploying that capital into their core business. As an example, a hypothetical operating company, ACME Digital that manufactures circuit boards and disc drives has delivered an average annual return of 22% since going public in 2000. It owns a headquarters office building bought for $60 million with a book value of $50 million and a market value of $100 million. If the building is sold for $100 million the net proceeds after a 35% tax rate are $82.5 million. If the company has a weighted average cost of capital of 12%, but can earn a 22% return (the company's historical return on equity) on reinvesting the $82.5 million in its business, the company will add $18.1 million in value annually to its shareholders. This will result in a higher stock price and enterprise value. The intrinsic value of a company is the present value of its free cash flows and terminal value discounted at its weighted average cost of capital. The incremental cash flows generated from the above investment will increase this intrinsic value. If ACME Digital decided to keep the real estate, it would have a slightly higher net income because the deprecation would be less than a comparable rent, however, it would not have the capital to reinvest and earn the incremental 22% return.

The capital companies have tied up in real estate is not earning a return other than the amount of rent being saved by owning the property. However, this amount is very small compared to the lost capital investment. Today, many public companies are evaluating their return on capital and asset utilization in a difficult economy. One way to increase these returns is to dispose of non-strategic real estate assets and reinvest that capital in the business operation to generate organic growth. Companies that reinvest this real estate capital into their core business can earn a much higher return on equity, which will result in a higher stock price and market value.

Joseph Ori is executive managing director of Paramount Capital Corp. The views expressed in this column are the author's own.