Shareholders Support Company's Proposal to Declassify the Board

CHICAGO, May 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Equity Residential (NYSE: EQR) announced the results of its Annual Meeting of Shareholders held today in Chicago, Illinois. At the meeting, the Company's shareholders overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the Company's Declaration of Trust to declassify the Board of Trustees, providing for the annual election of trustees. As a result, the Company's shareholders elected John W. Alexander, Bruce W. Duncan, Stephen O. Evans, James D. Harper, Jr., Boone A. Knox, Sheli Z. Rosenberg, Gerald A. Spector, Michael N. Thompson, B. Joseph White and Samuel Zell to the Board of Trustees for a one-year term. The Board is chaired by Samuel Zell.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010801/ERPTCLOGO )

Bruce W. Duncan, the Company's President and CEO said, "We are very pleased that our shareholders supported the proposal to declassify the Board of Trustees. Our Board submitted this proposal to our shareholders as part of a series of ongoing corporate governance initiatives and in keeping with our goal of ensuring that the Company's corporate governance policies maximize the Board's accountability to our shareholders."

In addition to the election of the trustees and adoption of the declassified board structure, shareholders also approved an amendment to increase the number of shares authorized for issuance under the Company's Employee Share Purchase Plan.

Equity Residential is the largest publicly traded apartment company in America. Nationwide, Equity Residential owns or has investments in 1,027 properties in 36 states consisting of 221,249 units. For more information on Equity Residential please visit our website at www.equityapartments.com .

SOURCE  Equity Residential
    -0-                             05/30/2003
    /CONTACT:   Marty McKenna of Equity Residential, +1-312-928-1901/
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    /Web site:  http://www.eqr.comhttp://www.equityapartments.com /
    (EQR)

CO:  Equity Residential
ST:  Illinois
IN:  FIN RLT
SU:



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0252 05/30/200312:09 EDThttp://www.prnewswire.com