High-End REIT in Lowdown Brawl

If Williams wins his fight, Lowenthal will collect a $750,000 base salary that's twice the current CEO's. He will at least double his salary with a guaranteed bonus plan that currently doesn't exist. He will receive 500,000 stock options that are already in the money. He will pick up 100,000 shares of restricted stock. He'll get a company car and a furnished apartment in Atlanta. And he'll be reimbursed for travel expenses if he decides to commute from his current home in New Jersey.

All told, Post has stressed, Lowenthal stands to collect more than $6 million if he successfully replaces the company's current $375,000-a-year CEO.

"For all his talk about good corporate governance, Mr. Williams already has committed a huge amount of your company's money to the person he picked as CEO if his nominees are elected at the upcoming shareholders meeting," Post stated last week. "Keep in mind that it is Post Properties -- not Mr. Williams -- which would be obligated to pay the enormous contractual amounts."

Williams is instead on the hook for a smaller sum. In order to snag Lowenthal ahead of the proxy showdown, Williams promised the executive $300,000 -- plus expenses -- even if his attempt to replace half the board ultimately fails.

The Long Journey

Of course, Williams is known as a big spender.

The Post brand, launched 32 years ago on the outskirts of Atlanta, is now synonymous with luxurious apartment living all across the Southeast. The company offers both suburban and trendy urban apartments that feature special touches such as high ceilings, direct-access garages and lush landscaping complete with the blooming tulips that also decorate the company's logo.

Post intentionally set out to entice affluent tenants, primarily in the growing cities of Atlanta and Dallas, who were willing and able to satisfy expensive tastes. But the same strategy that propelled the company to stardom has now come back to haunt it. Neither Atlanta nor Dallas is the booming city it was just a few years ago. Rather, both cities have been hard hit by the sagging economy and the worst apartment slump in recent history. Some of the same residents who could cheerfully write out big rent checks are now typing up new resumes instead. And others, tempted by record-low mortgage rates, have decided to take the plunge and buy the homes they could have afforded all along.