AURORA, CO-John W. Seiple Jr. on Wednesday said he will resign as president and CEO of North America for ProLogis, once its $3.6-billion purchase of Catellus Development is completed. Separately, ProLogis, the world's largest industrial REIT, says it also will be restating its 2004 earnings.
Seiple will leave ProLogis on Dec. 31. Ted Antenucci, currently president of Catellus, will assume the majority of Seiple's responsibilities. "We find this very interesting," Matt Gallino, a director at Fitch Ratings REIT department in New York City tells GlobeSt.com. "We think it is significant. What I would say is that from a credit perspective we are looking at it as being credit neutral. That is, it is not a positive, not a negative, from our standpoint."
Gallino says that one thing ProLogis has going for it is that it is "not a one-man show. There are a lot of people we have confidence in. They have a very strong team. Collectively, they are very strong."
He says that Seiple appears to have done an excellent job at building ProLogis, but Antenucci has an equally strong track record. "The way I understand it, Ted was instrumental in building their portfolio," Gallino says. "The numbers speak for themselves. They have very strong and well-positioned assets; Ted will bring his experience to ProLogis. While anytime there is change, there is uncertainty. That said, we fell that ProLogis will be in very good hands."
Seiple has made "numerous and substantial contributions to ProLogis for more than a decade," says Jeffrey H. Schwartz, CEO of ProLogis. "His leadership of our North American operations and development activities over the past six years has helped ProLogis achieve its position today."
For his part, Seiple notes he has had the "opportunity to participate in the extraordinary growth of ProLogis from the earliest days." He says now is a "great time for the transition."
As far as the 2004 earnings restatement, ProLogis says it would break out the items associated with the sale of properties as discontinued operations instead of classifying them under either revenue or expenses to conform with an accounting rule. That rule governs the sale of properties and properties held for sale, but will not change the earnings.
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