W. P. Carey & Co. LLC Acquires Langeveld International's Headquarters and Distribution/Warehouse Facility
$8.37 Million Sale-Leaseback Includes Financing For Expansion of Flowering Bulb Company's Lakewood, New Jersey Facility
NEW YORK, NY – July 19, 2000 – W. P. Carey & Co. LLC (NYSE:WPC), a leader in the ownership and net leasing of corporate properties, announced today that it has completed it's first transaction as a newly combined company through the acquisition of the main office and warehouse/distribution facility of Langeveld International, Inc. W. P. Carey acquired the facility on behalf of Corporate Property Associates 14 (CPA®:14), a publicly held non-traded real estate investment trust (REIT) which it manages.
The purchase price for the facility was approximately $8.4 million. The property is leased to Langeveld under a 20 year bond-type net lease. The existing 121,000 square foot facility is used as the main warehousing/distribution center and office for Langeveld's extensive product line of Fall and Spring planted bulbs and perennial plants. The facility, which is situated on approximately 12.8 acres in the Lakewood Industrial Park in Lakewood, New Jersey (part of Ocean County), will be expanded by an additional 96,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution space to create a facility with a total of approximately 217,000 square feet.
Commenting on the transaction, W. P. Carey Executive Director and CPA®:14 President Gordon J. Whiting stated, "The sale/leaseback with Langeveld International is an example of W. P. Carey's flexibility in structuring transactions to meet the particular financing needs of growing companies across a wide range of industries. Securing long term sale-leaseback financing will free up cash flow for redeployment in the company's current operations. In addition, the sale-leaseback will provide the funding required for Langeveld's expansion of its core warehouse/distribution facility, which is a critical component of the company's plan for continued growth. By including the cost of the expansion in the total financing, the company did not need to go out-of-pocket to fund the construction or seek short-term construction financing."
Langeveld International is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Garden Products, Inc. ("IGP"). IGP was established in 1996 to acquire well established garden product companies that grow, process and distribute a wide variety of herbaceous and woody ornamental plants, seeds, bulbs and other ancillary products sold primarily to independent garden centers, retail nurseries, and multiple store garden center specialty chains, as well as to professional landscapers, some wholesalers and mass merchandisers.
IGP currently consists of seven subsidiary companies, including three of the premier garden product growers and the largest distributor of flowering bulbs in the United States, the largest packaged seed company in the U.K., and the first of a series of regional plant finishers. In addition to Langeveld International, these "business units" include Iseli Nursery, Inc. (Boring, OR); Skagit Gardens, Inc. (Mount Vernon, WA); Weeks Wholesale Rose Grower, Inc. (Upland, CA); Thompson & Morgan Group (Ipswich, U.K.); Vandenberg Bulb Company (Chester, NY); and Little Valley Nursery, Inc. (Denver, CO). Together, these acquisitions provide IGP with a broad range of more than 4,500 different products, wide geographic diversity from both a production and marketing viewpoint, as well as seasonal balance and the critical mass required to build a major national powerhouse within the growing garden products industry.
W. P. Carey & Co. LLC specializes in the acquisition and management of existing and to-be-constructed, single-tenant commercial real estate, net leased on a long-term basis to corporations across the credit spectrum. The company owns and manages a diversified portfolio of net leased corporate properties with more than 38 million square feet under management in 42 states and Europe.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal securities laws. A number of factors could cause the company's actual results, performance or achievement to differ materially from those anticipated. Among those risks, trends and uncertainties are the general economic climate; the supply of and demand for office and industrial properties; interest rate levels; the availability of financing; and other risks associated with the acquisition and ownership of properties, including risks that the tenants will not pay rent, or that costs may be greater than anticipated. For further information on factors that could impact the company, reference is made to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
