Workspace Property Trust Seeks $527M In Upcoming IPO
Workspace Property Trust is going public, two years after its inception.
The Greater Philadelphia-based REIT, formed in 2015 by Thomas Rizk and Roger Thomas, focuses on suburban office developments, such as the $1B portfolio Workspace purchased from Liberty Property Trust in 2016. At its initial public offering Nov. 9, Workspace plans to offer 39 million shares at $12 to $15 per share, with a goal of raising $527M, Renaissance Capital reports.
Rizk and Thomas previously took Cali Realty Corp. public in 1994, three years before its merger with Mack created Mack-Cali Realty. Workspace will be listed in the New York Stock Exchange as WSPT, with Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Barclays, Citi, BMO Capital Markets, Capital One Securities and JMP Securities as bookrunners.
Workspace totaled $153M in sales in the 12 months before July 2017, and has 9.9M SF in its portfolio of 148 properties, 41 of them in Horsham, where it is headquartered. To explain its focus on suburban office, the REIT noted the maturing and increasingly child-rearing millennial population's anticipated migration back to the suburbs, and recent suburban headquartering deals by Caterpillar and Marriott International.
