BREIT 2017 Annual Report

12 corporation. Our bylaws contain a provision exempting from the Control Share Acquisition Act any and all acquisitions of our stock by any person. There can be no assurance that this provision will not be amended or eliminated at any time in the future. Maryland law and our organizational documents limit our rights and the rights of our stockholders to recover claims against our directors and officers, which could reduce your and our recovery against them if they cause us to incur losses. Maryland law provides that a director will not have any liability as a director so long as he or she performs his or her duties in accordance with the applicable standard of conduct. In addition, our charter generally limits the personal liability of our directors and officers for monetary damages subject to the limitations of the North American Securities Administrators Association’s Statement of Policy Regarding Real Estate Investment Trusts, as revised and adopted on May 7, 2007 and Maryland law. Maryland law and our charter provide that no director or officer shall be liable to us or our stockholders for monetary damages unless the director or officer (1) actually received an improper benefit or profit in money, property or services or (2) was actively and deliberately dishonest as established by a final judgment as material to the cause of action. Moreover, our charter generally requires us to indemnify and advance expenses to our directors and officers for losses they may incur by reason of their service in those capacities unless their act or omission was material to the matter giving rise to the proceeding and was committed in bad faith or was the result of active and deliberate dishonesty, they actually received an improper personal benefit in money, property or services or, in the case of any criminal proceeding, they had reasonable cause to believe the act or omission was unlawful. Further, we have entered into separate indemnification agreements with each of our officers and directors. As a result, you and we may have more limited rights against our directors or officers than might otherwise exist under common law, which could reduce your and our recovery from these persons if they act in a manner that causes us to incur losses. In addition, we are obligated to fund the defense costs incurred by these persons in some cases. However, our charter provides that we may not indemnify our directors or officers, or the Adviser and its affiliates, for any liability or loss suffered by them or hold our directors or officers, the Adviser and its affiliates harmless for any liability or loss suffered by us, unless they have determined, in good faith, that the course of conduct that caused the loss or liability was in our best interests, they were acting on our behalf or performing services for us, the liability or loss was not the result of negligence or misconduct by our non-independent directors, the Adviser and its affiliates, or gross negligence or willful misconduct by our independent directors, and the indemnification or agreement to hold harmless is recoverable only out of our net assets or the proceeds of insurance and not from the stockholders. Maryland law and our organizational documents limit our stockholders’ ability to amend our charter or dissolve us without the approval of our board of directors. Although the Statement of Policy Regarding Real Estate Investment Trusts published by the North American Securities Administrators Association (“NASAA”) indicates that stockholders are permitted to amend our charter or terminate us without the necessity for concurrence by our board of directors, we are required to comply with the Maryland General Corporation Law, which provides that any amendment to our charter or any dissolution of our company must first be declared advisable by our board of directors. Therefore, our stockholders may vote to authorize the amendment of our charter or the dissolution of our company, but only after such action has been declared advisable by our board of directors. Accordingly, the only proposals to amend our charter or to dissolve our company that will be presented to our stockholders will be those that have been declared advisable by our board of directors and also require approval by our stockholders. Your interest in us will be diluted if we issue additional shares. Your interest in our assets will also be diluted if the Operating Partnership issues additional units. Holders of our common stock will not have preemptive rights to any shares we issue in the future. Our charter authorizes us to issue up to 2,100,000,000 shares of capital stock, of which 2,000,000,000 shares are classified as common stock, of which 500,000,000 shares are classified as Class T shares, 500,000,000 shares are classified as Class S shares, 500,000,000 shares are classified as Class D shares and 500,000,000 are classified as Class I shares, and 100,000,000 shares are classified as preferred stock. In addition, our board of directors may amend our charter from time to time to increase or decrease the aggregate number of authorized shares of capital stock or the number of authorized shares of capital stock of any class or series without stockholder approval. After you purchase shares of our common stock in the Offering, our board of directors may elect, without stockholder approval, to: (1) sell additional shares in this or future public offerings; (2) issue shares of our common stock or units in our Operating Partnership in private offerings; (3) issue shares of our common stock or units in our Operating Partnership upon the exercise of the options we may grant to our independent directors or future employees; (4) issue shares of our common stock or units in our Operating Partnership to the Adviser or the Special Limited Partner, or their successors or assigns, in payment of an outstanding obligation to pay fees for services rendered to us or the performance participation allocation; (5) issue shares of our common stock or units in our Operating Partnership to sellers of properties we acquire, or (6) issue equity incentive compensation to the senior executive officers of affiliated service providers or to third parties as satisfaction of obligations under incentive compensation arrangements. To the extent we issue additional shares of common stock after your purchase in the Offering, your percentage ownership interest in us will be diluted.