W.P Carey Inc. goes public

After a successful merger with its parent, Corporate Property Associates 15 Inc. is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The merger with publicly traded real estate manager W.P. Carey & Co LLC closed Sept. 28 and the new company, W.P. Carey Inc., began trading last Monday. It retained the ticker symbol WPC. Some large REITs recently have drawn the scrutiny of investment advisers and securities regulators for lower revaluations and for how the REITs pay distributions, or dividends, to investors. But other nontraded REITs, including Corporate Property Associates 15, have been looking at mergers, initial public offerings and other such “liquidity events,” as they are commonly known in the industry. The new W.P. Carey REIT has about $5 billion in assets in its portfolio. It is now eligible for inclusion in the FTSE Nareit All-REIT index, the company said in a statement.