DuGan Steps Down as W.P. Carey CEO

NEW YORK CITY-Gordon DuGan has resigned as president and CEO of W.P. Carey & Co. over disagreements with chairman Wm. Polk Carey, the company said Monday. Board member Trevor Bond has been named interim CEO until a permanent replacement can be found.

In a statement, DuGan says his resignation was precipitated by a disagreement over Carey’s “degree of authority and control” and differences about the investment firm’s strategic direction. DuGan was named CEO in 2005, six years after becoming the company’s president. He first joined W.P. Carey in 1988.

“I am gratified that I leave the company as it is performing well and in a solid financial position,” DuGan says in a statement. “I wish the company well in the future.” For his part, Carey says in a statement that he remains an admirer of DuGan’s “abundant investment management and general business talent” although he and DuGan “have not been strategically aligned in recent years.”

During his tenure as W.P. Carey’s interim CEO, Bond will remain a board member but will resign from the board’s compensation and audit committees. Bond has been an independent director of the company since 2007, and served as director of several of the company’s CPA REIT programs from ’05 to ’07.

Also on Monday, W.P. Carey announced that Mark DeCesaris had been named CFO, having served as acting CFO since November 2005. He was a consultant to the company’s finance department for six months prior to taking on the role of acting CFO.

In May, W.P. Carey reported first-quarter results that showed declines in adjusted funds from operations, cash flow, net revenue and net income compared to Q1 2009. Since then, it has completed a number of acquisitions, including the purchase of two Tampa, FL office properties net-leased to JPMorgan Chase from a Brookfield Asset Management affiliate for a reported $58.3 million. It also agreed to provide $41 million of build-to-suit financing to the Sun Products Co. for a distribution center in Bowling Green, KY.