robcula,
that is an interesting question. it's also why i have suggested that esl may take these assets and create a "public" reit structure.
if in fact it were to stay private, then commons could face the possibility of getting some type of restricted shares which have little or no market. going back to my post about parker drilling emerging from bk and the commons surviving, digging a little deeper into that structure indicated it would be a restricted share situation. however, there was the caveat that even though restricted at the time of issuance, that did not prevent sec registration of those securities at a later date which would then have all of the benefits of a publicly traded stock.
also, i'm not sure whether or not that parker drilling situation was not a work around because of the gov't shutdown. the parker por was signed off on just last week and there is a gimmick of some sorts where stock can be issued like parker proposed doing. not sure if it was shutdown related or not.
