CBS Outdoor Spinning into REIT - Effects?

Just read this article from January 2013 about CBS Outdoor turning their U.S. operations into a Real Estate Investment Trust. Frank or anybody - any thoughts?

“REITs don’t pay federal income taxes, with the understanding that they distribute at least 90 percent of taxable earnings to shareholders as dividends.”

As the article states, a REIT must “invest at least 75 percent of its assets in real estate and obtain 75 percent of its gross income from rents or interest on mortgages from financing property, according to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, a Washington-based trade group.”

So does CBS primarily own the land for it’s signs?

And you have to admit, the revenues are impressive; “CBS’s outdoor business generated $1.38 billion in sales in the first nine months of last year. Operating income more than doubled to $82 million in the period from $35 million a year earlier.”

This is actually a good thing because the outdoor company has been “weighed down” by the rest of the company, and now it can be free to perform well and get good press all on its own. I can’t see any downside to it at all. They own very little of the land, but they can be a REIT because billboards are considered a real estate business based on leased land – just like cell towers.