Pacific Gulf Declares Cash Distribution to Shareholders

NEWPORT BEACH, CA-In accordance with a short-term plan to liquidate its portfolios of industrial and multifamily properties and distribute the proceeds to investors, Pacific Gulf Properties announced Friday a special cash distribution of $22 per share.

The real estate investment trust, whose shareholders voted in early November to allow the total sell off of all remaining assets and total dissolution of the firm, will pay the special distribution on Dec. 15 to all shareholders of record on Dec. 11, 2000.

“This distribution marks the first of what we expect to be a series of special distributions of proceeds from the sales of the company’s properties,” says chairman/CEO Glenn L. Carpenter. “As we expected, sales of several of our industrial properties to CalWest Industrial Properties were deferred (pending remediation work) or were withdrawn for future sale to other parties.”

Just a week ago Pacific Gulf closed the sale of 66 industrial properties to CalWest for $853 million. One industrial property was withdrawn from the sale and five others may require additional remediation or other actions from third parties before selling them to CalWest, or they may be deleted eventually from the sale altogether.

The REIT also recently sold five of its traditional multifamily apartment complexes for $38.2 million. Sales are pending for two other traditional multifamily properties, although those transactions are subject to various conditions, and there are no assurances that the transactions will close.

Pacific Gulf’s multifamily portfolio still has six active senior multifamily properties available for sale consisting of 1,294 units, plus an additional 1,202 units currently under construction. There are no deals to sell these properties at this time.

If the remaining industrial and multifamily properties are sold as planned, management believes that the cumulative distributions to shareholders of proceeds from the sales will total up to $26 per share.

Standard & Poor’s withdrew the firm’s double ‘B’ corporate rating a couple of weeks ago, since the REIT had no outstanding debt or shares of ratable securities. Pacific Gulf reported earnings (Funds From Operations) of $17 million for the third quarter of 2000.