GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: G&W Forms $200M Investment Fund, Changes Name

Altogether, the two companies have invested approximately $2 billion in value-added suburban office properties and select CBD projects in the past decade. The latest fund will target acquisition and redevelopment opportunities in the Boston-to-Washington, DC corridor, including The Gale Co.'s New Jersey home base, as well as in California.

"This is all part of the national platform we are creating through our continuing three-market expansion in Boston and Northern and Southern California," the company's chairman/CEO Stan Gale exclusively tells GlobeSt.com. "We will do it through our relationship with Morgan Stanley, which is one of respect and admiration.

"Our investments with this fund will be spread out among our existing markets," Gale continues. "We will be investing a minimum of $200 million, potentially leveraging that to $500 million to $600 million. That might be a contrarian view to the market right now, but the world's not falling apart. It signals our view that product is available and pricing is moderate."

"Stan Gale and his senior management team are one of the best operations in the real estate industry," says Michael Franco, head of US acquisitions for the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund. "We feel that this new fund will continue to enable our venture to build on our past successes."

As far as the name change, it essentially reflects the fact that original partner Finn Wentworth, who left in 1999 to become COO of the YankeeNets, is no longer involved with the company. The YankeeNets, of course, own the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets and Devils franchises. That organization has been in the headlines recently, of course, for its attempts to get a new arena built in downtown Newark. In any case, The Gale Co. is now privately owned by Stan Gale.

The name change also represents a move to "brand and standardize what we do," Gale tells GlobeSt.com. We are entrepreneurs, we are transaction-driven, and we want to create a more homogeneous national platform while we are filling out our markets. We want people on the east coast and west coast to expect the same level of service from us. This is an ongoing process."

Besides its Florham Park, NJ home base, The Gale Co. has its primary offices in Boston, California and London. It also has 21 secondary offices across the country and in the U.K. It has a global portfolio of 40 million sf, and besides Morgan Stanley has joint venture relationships with J.P. Morgan and PaineWebber.