Safehold Inc. SAFE → Star Holdings STHO
| Parent | Safehold Inc. SAFE |
|---|---|
| Spinco | Star Holdings STHO |
| Status | Completed |
| Structure | Spin-off A filing states a pro-rata distribution: holders receive shares automatically. |
| Focus | Focus-increasing Parent and spinco operate in different industries — the class the research associates with stronger post-separation returns. |
| Ratio | 0.153 Star Holdings shares for every 1 iStar share |
| Ratio note | Holders of record held iStar Inc. stock; iStar absorbed Old Safehold the same day and took the Safehold name and SAFE ticker. |
| Checked against EDGAR | 2026-08-22 |
Data trap
The parent's identity flips on the day. iStar Inc. was the distributing parent; hours later it absorbed the old Safehold entity, survived the merger and took the Safehold name and the SAFE ticker. Naming Safehold as the parent is only correct after that merger, and the old Safehold's separate CIK is the wrong one to cite. The distribution was also taxable to holders rather than a tax-free separation, and it took effect at 12:02 a.m., before the open, so March 31 is itself the first regular-way session.
The restated filings have landed; this is kept as history.
Catalyst clock
- 2022-08-11Separation announced
- 2022-12-16Form 10 filed
- 2023-03-20Form 10 last amended
- 2023-03-22Form 10 effective
- 2023-03-27Record date
- —When-issued trading opens
- 2023-03-31Distribution
- 2023-05-11First standalone earnings
- —Index inclusion announced
Performance since separation
| Star Holdings since separation | -43.70% |
|---|---|
| Safehold Inc. over the same window | -47.67% |
| S&P 500 (SPY) over the same window | +87.04% |
| Russell 2000 (IWM) over the same window | +68.14% |
| Excess over the S&P 500 | -130.74% |
| Excess over the Russell 2000 | -111.84% |
Measured from the first regular-way close on or after the distribution — 2023-03-31 at 17.39 — to 2026-08-21 at 9.79. Window: 3.4 years. Two benchmarks, because one is misleading: spin-offs are usually small companies, and across this period small caps lagged the S&P by several points a year on their own. Measured against the S&P alone, roughly a third of any shortfall is company size rather than the separation. Returns are arithmetic over end-of-day closing prices. Unlike every other figure on this page, they do not come from a filing.
Pre-distribution investor return
| Parent, announcement to separation | -34.20% |
|---|---|
| Combined (Safehold Inc. + Star Holdings), pre-distribution to now | -43.36% |
| Combined excess over the S&P 500 | -133.04% |
| Combined excess over the Russell 2000 | -114.59% |
Combined treats a pre-spin holding as 0.153 Star Holdings shares for every 1 iStar share valued at the parent's last close before regular post-spin trading resumed — 2023-03-30 at 29.78 — against that same basket today. That baseline is a practical proxy, not an attempt to isolate exactly how much value the separation transferred: for a large parent and a small spinco, ordinary day-to-day price noise can be bigger than the transfer itself. Run-up measures only the parent's own price, from the announcement date to that same baseline — how far the market had already moved before the separation's mechanics ever happened.
Filings
Every fact on this page comes from one of these.
- 10-12B/Afiled 2023-03-20 · 0001104659-23-034354Final Form 10 amendment; its Ex-99.1 is only the preliminary information statement
- 8-Kfiled 2023-03-22 · 0001104659-23-035614Form 10 declared effective; definitive information statement with the 0.153 ratio and the March 27 record date
- 8-Kfiled 2023-03-31 · 0001104659-23-039689Completion: spin-off effective 12:02 a.m. Eastern on March 31, 2023, regular-way trading that same day; iStar then merged with Old Safehold
- 10-Qfiled 2023-05-11 · 0001558370-23-009450First periodic report; 13,320,000 shares issued and outstanding
Notes
iStar's separation of its legacy non-ground-lease assets into Star Holdings, clearing the way for the remaining company to become a pure ground-lease REIT under the Safehold name. Classified focus-increasing: the parent shed everything that was not its single chosen business.