As reported by GlobeSt.com, that deal closed in late April, with the new owners paying British retailer Marks & Spencer $61.5 million for the company. Following the sale, it was announced that Weitz, a long-time retail executive, would become the new chairman of Kings.

"The Kings facilities represent extremely valuable pieces of real estate," says Jason Fox, a director at WP Carey, which bought the six stores through its affiliated income generating real estate fund, Corporate Property Associates 16-Global Incorporated. "They are in prime locations in the center of dense, affluent areas of Northern New Jersey."

As part of the deal to sell the stores, Kings has leased them back on a triple-net basis. Further details were not released. The just-sold units are located in the New Jersey towns of Summit, Livingston, Maplewood, Montclair, Morristown and Cresskill. Overall, 25 of Kings upscale supermarkets are located in Northern New Jersey, and the 26th store is on Long Island.

"WP Carey's sale-leaseback was a key component in the financing of our acquisition of Kings," says Brent Leffel, a director at Angelo, Gordon, a New York-based private equity group. "This was a difficult transaction given the three-week turnaround required to complete the sale-leaseback concurrently with our buy-out."

The sale of Kings in April by Marks & Spencer marked the end of on-again, off-again seven-year effort by the latter to sell the former. Marks & Spencer had an agreement in 2002 to sell the chain to New York-based grocer D'Agostino's for $160 million, but pulled the deal off the table and subsequently sold it for well under half of that amount. Marks & Spencer had acquired Kings back in 1988 for $113 million.