Piedmont Office Realty Trust, which owns 73 office properties, on Thursday filed a prospectus for its stock-exchange listing, setting its expected share price between $16 and $18. If the initial public offering meets the most optimistic estimate, the average investor will realize a 2.1% annual return over seven years, according to an analysis by research firm Green Street Advisors.

Had those investors simply bought shares in an index of publicly traded real-estate stocks, their total return over that time would have averaged about 8% a year.

The offering will mark the latest twist in the saga of Piedmont, which has seen shareholder lawsuits and delays of its IPO since being formed in 1997 by Mr. Wells, a Norcross, Ga., investor who has earned millions of dollars from sponsoring real-estate funds targeted at individual investors.

Wall Street Journal