W. P. Carey & Co. LLC (NYSE: WPC) is a corporate financing firm headquartered in New York City.
The firm was founded in 1973 by William Polk Carey.[1] George Stoddard joined the business in 1979 and served as chair of its investment committee.[2]
The company was a pioneer of the sale-and-leaseback transaction, which it used in 1982 to help the Wesray Corporation finance its acquisition of Gibson Greeting Cards through a leveraged buyout and in 1983 to finance Wesray's buyout of Heekin Can.[2]
W. P. Carey and its CPA series of income-generating funds specialize in helping companies and private equity firms free up capital by purchasing and leasing back their real estate assets on a long-term, triple net basis. With over $9.7 billion in assets and $5 billion in equity capital, the W. P. Carey Group owns more than 850 commercial and industrial properties in 14 countries, representing approximately 100 million square feet (9.3 million m2).
In 2009 the company bought 21 floors of the 52-story New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan for $225 million under a sale-and-leaseback arrangement in which the newspaper's publisher agreed to lease space in the building for up to 15 years, while retaining the right to buy the building back in 2019 for a price of $250 million.[3]