Yes, recent Forest City losses drove change in stock structure (so says Crain's)

I wrote on 12/7/16 how the decision by Forest City Realty Trust to collapse the dual-class share structure, thus removing the longstanding control by the extended Ratner family, seemed driven in part by the $300 million impairment--loss in asset value--announced in early November on the Pacific Park Brooklyn project.

As Stan Bullard writes in Crain's Cleveland Business that one investment analyst, Paul Adornato, agreed with that analysis, saying he had thought the the stock would suffer earlier, in October, after Forest City announced it would not remove the two-class structure. "Investors had, in my mind," Adornato said, "become very fed up with all the impairments."

Bullard, in Analysis: Forest City takes difficult, necessary step, points out the discussion began long before one minority investor, Scopia Capital Management, began pushing to collapse the dual-class structure this summer:

Grappling with governance finally moved to the fore after a multitude of difficult moves since 2011. Exiting the land development business, selling its cash-rich military housing business and this year's dramatic conversion to a real estate investment trust have not adequately boosted the firm's languishing share price with respect to the value of its property holdings.
...On Oct. 4, 2011, Third Avenue [Management] suggested in an SEC filing that Forest City consider a long list of steps to improve operations and consider unfolding the dual share structure — at the time, almost 20 million shares of Forest City stock, or 13.3% of the shares.

Interestingly, Third Avenue appears to have lost patience, having sold three quarters of its holdings since then. It declined to comment, though it told investors in a note Oct. 30--before Forest City's losses were announced--that it thought the company's positions in major cities boded well for the future.