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W. P. Carey CEO Announces Retirement

Mark DeCesaris

W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE: WPC), an internally-managed net lease real estate investment trust and sponsor of non-traded direct investment programs, announced that Mark DeCesaris will retire as chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors at the end of the year.

Jason Fox, the current president of W. P. Carey, will succeed DeCesaris as CEO and a member of the board, while John Park, director of strategy and capital markets, will succeed Fox as president.

“Mark has been instrumental to W. P. Carey’s significant progress over his 12-year tenure and over the past two years as CEO, in particular,” Benjamin Griswold IV, chairman of the W. P. Carey board. “Under Mark’s leadership, the board and management team thoroughly reviewed the company’s strategic alternatives and implemented a plan to focus on its core net lease investment expertise. Today, W. P. Carey is a stronger company with a well-defined strategy of owning a portfolio of diversified, high-quality net lease assets.”

In June 2017, the board approved a plan to exit all non-traded retail fundraising activities to focus exclusively on net lease investing for the company’s balance sheet. W.P. Carey’s managed programs include non-traded REITs, non-traded business development companies, and private funds.

Fox was appointed president of W. P. Carey Inc. in 2015, prior to which he served as head of global investments from 2015 to 2016 and co-head from 2011 to 2015. He currently manages the firm’s investment and asset management activity on behalf of W. P. Carey and its CPA® series of non-traded REITs and has been responsible for more than $10 billion of acquisitions since joining in 2002.

Before joining W. P. Carey, Fox worked at the Spectrem Group, a consulting and M&A advisory firm in San Francisco. Prior to Spectrem, he spent two years teaching mathematics and physics at The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. Fox is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and environmental science. He received his master’s in business administration from Harvard Business School.

W. P. Carey Inc. provides long-term sale-leaseback and build-to-suit financing solutions primarily for companies in the U.S. and Europe. At September 30, 2017, the company had an enterprise value of approximately $11.4 billion. In addition to its owned portfolio of diversified global real estate, W. P. Carey manages a series of investment programs with assets under management of approximately $13.2 billion.

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