but we do not think of sam zell's.is considered the godfather of the real estate investment trust. he said the industry, its reputation is at stake. betty liu has the details, because she has been speaking to mr. zell. who has gotten on his bad side? >> it is these two. let's pull up the picture of both of them. it is adam and his father, barry portnoy. a real of them run estate investment trust. the $6 million fund has office properties all over the u.s., one in philadelphia, by the way, the one in millon center. there is a shareholder fight. activism is very uncommon in the real estate world. >> why is that, by the way? >> you would like to think they are nicer. owners have been in the business for decades. it is a gentlemanly type of -- trust me, it is ruthless as well, but in terms of outsiders coming in and trying to oust the board, which is what is happening here, that is not very common. basically, zell has teamed up with jeff blau of related, and keith meister. and by the way, blau and meister have a 10% stake

if you look at sam zell's performance, for example, 550 %.re is a consent solicitation process and shareholders can choose whether they want sam zell to run it or that family to rent. >> how did you decide to work ?ogether sam zell. >> we have been gathering our position and sam called us up and said -- actually i think he wound up in a dispute with the family in a transaction or some landholdings they had in hawaii. research onid some them and ran across the stories about what we were doing and really said there is something wrong, when he read about the governance that is in place. he called us up and said, is there anything i can do to help? we said, you should buy some stock and then vote whatever way you think is appropriate. >> by some stock in commonwealth. >> by some stock in commonwealth, right. we called him back and asked, why don't you join our team or be our proposed chairman if we were to win the fight, and he called back and said, he is actually very busy, but this is so important to him -- proper governance and really his role

this week is a big one for who isaire sam zell involved in a rare display of shareholder activism ase has effort of aoin the avement that is said that company is being drained of its funds. just this morning, commonwealth the clip -- accused zell of hiding his own insults -- of his own assets. shares -- board member -- shareholders of commonwealth will vote whether to kick the board out. nedich is watching this from the sidelines. great to see you. knowing these property players, this is a fascinating fight. feels he was he really a big part in creating the reit business so he feels like he has to step up and take this case. what do you think of this? >> i think the idea of hasrnally managing reits been uncomfortable for certain investors. the analysts have always argued against externally managed reits. ofreits was back in the 1970's were the externally managed reit was the typical structure and the new reits created in the 1990's, they became internally managed so this is a bit of an outlier but there are other examples of externally managed reits. andssentially whatzell others are

i believe the answer is none other than sam zell, perhaps the greatest real estate investor in americane the resemblance? sort of. back then, sam did not have the soul patch. here are some of our winners. he is indeed a wizard of real estate. congratulations. do we have one more? we do not have time. what lots of people got it right. sam zell, the answer. "on the markets" is next. ♪ >> we are approaching 56 past the hour. that means bloomberg television is on the markets. i am julie hyman. stocks are rising after a two-day decline. the vix trading back below 14. a stat showed an increase in consumer spending. is this a sign that the economic downturn might be turning around with the weather? i was talking with an investor earlier about this. we have been stuck in a range. the stocks have not been able to make much progress. if you look at the vix falling, that.ort of supports any signs of a breakout in either direction? >> we are not seeing any signs of a breakout yet. at the past month, the weather and how it has affected the economic data. we have overlooked some pretty downbeat ada o

. >> we had sam zell on "squawk box" on friday. he came up with an interesting analogy.ome of the blame on the federal reserve at this point saying when you have zero interest rates it's like not having a shot clock in a basketball game. there's no severe incentive to get money into investments, people think they have time. >> i disagree with that. if i'm at zero interest rate, i want to get it out. we invested over $11 billion last year. that was a record for us. any project that comes to me that has a reasonable payout, whether it's wind farms in iowa, whatever it may be, i love building more freight cars, whatever it may be. zero interest rate pushes me. if interest rates were 15%, i would be sitting there with a 15% alternative and it would be much tougher for capital projects to catch my eye. i would argue the reverse. >> let me ask you one more on the political front. stan writes in, he says how do you compare of the president of the united states' performance with brian moynihan's performance over the last five years? obviously you own a big stake in the bank of a

sam zell. carl, back to you. >> thanks, rick santelli. >>> take a look at markets right now.n the dow for all of the major averages, dow, s&p and nasdaq looking at the worst day in exactly one month since february 3rd as we are back now to 1839 below some key critical levels. and gold another story today. up $32. 13.53 is a long cry from 1200. we know gold's up more than 10% this year. long before banks, atms and bitcoin there were pawnshops. after 28 years running the gold and silver pawnshop in las vegas, rick harrison, star of the history channel reality series "pawn stars" is an expert. he joins us this morning in an exclusive from las vegas. rick, great to have you back. good morning. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to get your take on how consumers are feeling, but first i got to ask you about gold. are we in the middle of something, a new leg up do you think? >> i personally believe it's going to be probably around 1400, that's where it's going to top out for the rest of the year. after that who knows, but that's what i'm more or less betting on. >> what's driving i

>> i think sam zell's taking it over.ere the stock started to where it is today, a tremendous amount of value has been unlocked. and a fantastic job. under zell's leadership he sees something in suburban office where he can capitalize on it and really drive value. not dissimilar to what we see today in a name we ran today, there's a lot of value that could be unlocked. >> ysucceeded in bre. >>> coming up, partying like it's 1999. jon steinberg, president of buzzfeed and the other b word, website troubles for obamacare. deadline is today. we'll discuss on "squawk on the street." street." my name is jenny, and i quit smoking with chantix. before chantix, i tried to quit probably about five times. it was different than the other times i tried to quit. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix varenicline is proven to help people quit smoking. it's a non-nicotine pill. chantix reduced my urge to smoke. that helped me quit smoking. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking, or mood, hostility, agita

. >> you know, we had sam zell on the program last week.hat we've had for years .years have in effect been like having no shot clock in basketball. so it hasn't pushed people to do it. but to get it to the point where the federal reserve looks like it may raise interest rates, do you think that will put a flurry of activity as people try to beat the shot clock? >> i don't know. i don't think short interest rates are rising anytime soon given the stagnation of the growth. it's 2%, 3%, it's okay. but the rest of the world isn't growth much at all. but there is no doubt as interest rates rise, it will be a headwind against growth and it will probably pull multiples down. maybe then it will create more investment opportunities as valuations come down. >> andrew? >> yeah? >> you carried interests -- go ahead. >> well, actually, you of all people may have a take on it. do you have a view on interests? would he have talkedling about it all morning. >> that is like asking me do you want to have a morning show on t tv. it's a small amount of taxes o

. >> i'm trying to think of what sam zell told us a couple weeks ago that rates removed the shot clocke all watching right now. >> you've got to put this in hockey terms for me. >> okay. >> power play then. >> the fed is removing some of the excess liquidity through tapering. kind of eindicated they might remove rates, 2015, 2016. when we value the markets we look at the ten-year bond yield. what do they believe bonds will look like in the next five years. not where they are today. if you're going to do pes. you've got to normalize that, too. when you do those analysis, 90% probability the market will be up in 12 months. those are pretty powerful statistics. >> it is. it does make you think about the areas already where we're seeing, carl, some of this. tobias, thanks. >>> let's get to rick santelli in chicago with today's santelli exchange. good morning, rick. >> good morning, carl. you know, there are certain things that are easy to talk about. there are other things that just aren't. we all know that old adage, you know, at the thanksgiving table when you're with family you want to