W P Carey to open office in the Netherlands

Listed US property company, W P Carey, is opening an office in Amsterdam to compliment its other European office in London.

The firm has decided to focus on investment work from the London office while the Dutch office will focus on managing the European portfolio, it said.

W P Carey owns nearly €3 billion ($4.6 billion) of assets in Europe, roughly one third of its global assets under management.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the firm specialises in providing long-term sale-leaseback financing for companies looking to grow their businesses, expand their facilities or pay down debt. It has grown significantly over the past three decades. Assets under management have tripled since 2001 and increased 15 percent from last year. In 2007, it completed $1.1 billion of transactions.

Gordon DuGan, chief executive and president, said: “We are not just dipping our toes into Europe. We have invested here for 10 years. Given the success we have enjoyed and the greater size of the sale-leaseback market outside of the US, we are positioning ourselves to further our European expansion and manage our increasingly global portfolio.”