Michelle Napoli is editor of Net Lease forum, from which this article is excerpted.

New York City—On the heels of completing a secondary offering of $550 million for Corporate Property Associates 16-Global Inc., W.P. Carey & Co. filed a registration for a new investment fund that could raise as much as $2 billion of equity for net lease properties. Although the New York City-based company is not currently raising capital, president and CEO Gordon F. DuGan says he hopes to kick off the new vehicle this year. "We continue to see record demand by investors for real estate-income-based investments, more demand than we're able to fulfill," DuGan explained during a Feb. 23 conference call.

The new fund, Corporate Property Associates 17-Global Inc., was formed last month. It will invest in properties and other real estate-related assets in the US and abroad, according to the preliminary prospectus. "We currently expect that for at least the first few years of our operations most of our investments will be long-term triple-net leases," the filing explains, adding that many of the deals will be the result of sale-leaseback transactions. CPA17 may, however, pursue investments in addition to net lease properties, including equity investments in properties net leased for less than seven years to a single tenant, mortgage loans, subordinated interests in first mortgages, mezzanine loans, CMBS and real estate-related equity and debt securities.

Carey expects the fund to qualify as a REIT. DuGan is CEO, Mark J. DeCesaris is acting CFO, John D. Miller is chief investment officer and Thomas E. Zacharias is director.