A real estate investment trust, or REIT, is a company that owns (and in some cases operates) income producing real estate such as office properties. In order to qualify to be a REIT under the United States Internal Revenue Code, a company generally must distribute annually at least 90% of its taxable income to its shareholders. REITs generally pay little or no corporate income taxes because they are able to deduct dividends they pay from their taxable earnings.

REITs are total return investments and they typically pay dividends plus the potential for moderate, long term capital appreciation.

FFO is a non-GAAP measure of a REIT's operating cash flow. It differs from GAAP net income largely due to the exclusion of non-cash items, such as depreciation and amortization. Many securities analysts judge a REIT's performance based largely upon FFO per share results. ILPT’s normalized FFO also excludes certain other items, such as the impact of acquisition related costs, estimated business management incentive fees and gains/losses on the early extinguishment of debt.

ILPT's fiscal year ends on December 31.