In 1973, after holding a series of real estate and corporate finance positions with various prominent Wall Street firms, W. P. Carey's Founder and Chairman Wm. Polk Carey created W. P. Carey & Co. to assist companies meet their capital needs through net lease financing. 

Since then, W. P. Carey has maintained an active fund-raising presence in the private retail, institutional and publicly traded markets.  In 1979, the firm launched its Corporate Property Associates (CPA®) series of limited partnerships.  These funds, built around single-tenant properties acquired through sale-leaseback transactions, provided the firm with a continuous source of capital for investing in corporate real estate.

By the end of 1997, CPA®:1-9 had invested in 197 properties with an approximate value of $750 million.  In early 1998, the funds were consolidated into Carey Diversified LLC and traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  Two years later in June 2000, shareholders of Carey Diversified elected to acquire its manager W. P. Carey & Co., Inc. through the issuance of shares of Carey Diversified and created W. P. Carey & Co. LLC. 

Today, W. P. Carey owns and/or manages a diversified portfolio consisting of more than 850 commercial and industrial properties comprised of approximately 100 million square feet of space.  In addition to owning and managing a diversified portfolio of net leased properties, W. P. Carey provides ongoing management services to its Corporate Property Associates series of REITs – CPA®:14, CPA®:15, CPA®:16 - Global and CPA®:17 - Global.