AFR CEO Promises Discipline, Transparency

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JENKINTOWN, PA-An hour after his appointment as CEO and president of American Financial Realty Trust, Harold Pote dominated a conference call with Wall Street analysts to spell out key initiatives that he said will bring discipline to the company and “take it back to its roots.” Pote replaces Nicholas Schorsch, an AFR founder and former president, vice chairman and CEO.

Discipline indeed. Over the next 18 to 24 months, Pote said AFR will dispose of non-core and selected high-profile assets that represent good market opportunities for expected net proceeds of up to $2 billion. Some of the proceeds will be used to help reduce debt toward a goal of achieving an overall debt to asset leverage ratio of between 60% and 65%. An analyst noted that the dollar value of property sales represents about half of the company’s current assets.