NEW YORK CITY—The industry has lost three iconic figures—all company founders—in a span of little more than three weeks, most recently with the passing of Wm. Polk Carey, chairman of locally based W.P. Carey & Co. LLC and the W.P. Carey Foundation. The sale-leaseback pioneer died Jan. 2 in West Palm Beach, FL at age 81.
Having founded the investment firm that bears his name in 1973, Carey launched the Corporate Property Associates program in 1979 with the idea of creating investment products that could perform well in both up markets and troughs. The firm's current series of non-traded REITs have combined assets valued at approximately $9.2 billion.
Trevor Bond, W.P. Carey & Co.'s CEO, said in a statement that Carey "was more than our founder and chairman—he was the cultural leader of our company." He added that the best way to honor his memory is to "continue to deliver outstanding results to investors" and "to ensure that the standards of excellence he established remain intact." Two days after Carey's passing, the firm named Benjamin H. Griswold IV as non-executive chairman.
Carey's death occurred a little more than two weeks after the Dec. 15 passing of Robert M. Campbell at his home in Aliso Viejo, CA. Cofounder of CT Realty and one of the most influential leaders in the California commercial real estate industry for more than four decades, Campbell was 71.
During Campbell's 15-year tenure as president of the firm he cofounded in 1994 with U.T. Thompson III, CT Realty completed more than 200 transactions valued in excess of $2.5 billion. Before establishing CT Realty, Campbell was general partner of Birtcher Campbell Properties for 20 years. While at Birtcher, he was responsible for the development of commercial real estate projects involving more than 11.5 million square feet of space.
Over the years, Campbell was the recipient of numerous awards for his business and philanthropic achievements. In 2003, he received the UC Irvine Graduate School of Management's Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to an individual who has exhibited a long period of positive influence over the real estate industry in Orange County, CA. Both Campbell and Carey were spotlighted this past September as "Industry Legends and Icons" in the 65th anniversary issue of REAL ESTATE FORUM.
The month of December also saw the passing of Joseph E. Robert Jr., who founded JER Partners, at age 59. Among the first to recognize the potential for public-private partnerships in disposing of distressed assets, Robert in 1989 formed the Real Estate Capital Recovery Association, an industry trade group that secured a place for the private sector in the dispositions being handled by the newly created Resolution Trust Corp.
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