Company: LANDO
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001495240-25-000005
Chunk: 68

Company: GLADSTONE LAND Corp
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 68
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 compliance with this requirement, our charter prohibits any individual from owning more than 3.3% in value of our outstanding stock.  Pursuant to an exception from this limit contained in our charter, as of December 31, 2024, David Gladstone owned, directly or indirectly, including through certain trusts, aggregate beneficial ownership of approximately 8.3% of our outstanding common stock.  In addition, the David and Lorna Gladstone Foundation, a private charitable foundation, owned approximately 0.6% of our outstanding common stock.  Our Board of Directors may also reduce the 3.3% ownership limitation if it determines that doing so is necessary for us to maintain our qualification for REIT treatment.  However, such a reduction would not be effective for any stockholder who beneficially owns more than the reduced ownership limit.  We believe that we have satisfied the ownership diversification requirements, including with respect to our taxable year ended December 31, 2024.  However, if, at any point in time, we are unable to comply with the ownership diversification requirements, we could fail to maintain our qualification as a REIT, which could require us to pay taxes and negatively impact our cash available for future distribution.

We will not seek to obtain a ruling from the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) that we qualify as a REIT for federal income tax purposes.

We have not requested, and do not expect to request, a ruling from the IRS that we qualify as a REIT.  An IRS determination that we do not qualify as a REIT would deprive our stockholders of the tax benefits of our REIT status only if the IRS determination is upheld in court or otherwise becomes final.  To the extent that we challenge an IRS determination that we do not qualify as a REIT, we may incur legal expenses that would reduce our funds available for distribution to stockholders.

The IRS may treat sale-leaseback transactions as loans, which could jeopardize our REIT status.

The IRS may take the position that transactions in which we acquire a property and lease it back to the seller do not qualify as leases for federal income tax purposes but are, instead, financing arrangements or loans.  If a sale-leaseback transaction were so re-characterized, we might fail to satisfy the asset or income tests required for REIT qualification and consequently could lose our REIT status.  Alternatively, the amount of our REIT taxable income could be recalculated, which could cause us to fail the distribution test