$94M Acquisition Set to Close for WRIT

ROCKVILLE, MD-Washington Real Estate Investment Trust has not completed its acquisition spree of the last several months. The REIT, which has closed on $133.4 million in acquisitions this quarter, still has one deal pending, according to statements made during a recent earnings call and according to filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

CFO Sara Grootwassink tells GlobeSt.com these are office assets. She also says the company has offers out for additional acquisitions–although she will not say in which asset classes–and hopes to make more closings this year. The first half of 2006 has been particularly strong, she says, in large part because of timing. “Many of these deals we were working on for well over a year.”

The $94-million acquisition, which is still pending based on the assumption of two mortgages, consists of two properties, in Rockville and Gaithersburg. According to Edmund B. Cronin, Jr., Chairman and CEO, this transaction is expected to close in August.

WRIT has made $156.5 million in acquisitions this year, the vast majority of which occurred in Q2. These deals included four medical office properties, two retail centers and one industrial/flex property. They were financed with the assumption of some mortgages and borrowings on the company’s line of credit that were later repaid with the proceeds from the firm’s recent debt and equity offerings.

WRIT, though, has taken a hit in profits this quarter; it is a result, it says, of charges related to senior executive severance pay of $1.4 million and the full expensing of second quarter 2006 share grants issued to Cronin. In June, Washington Real Estate Investment Trust announced that George F. McKenzie would become president and chief operating officer, in anticipation of Cronin’s retirement in May 2007. McKenzie joined the firm in 1996, most recently serving as executive vice president, real estate.