PHOENIX and SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5,
2015 /PRNewswire/ -- VEREIT, Inc. (NYSE: VER) ("VEREIT") and
Golden Gate Capital ("GGC") today announced that they have
partnered in transactions including more than $600 million of Red Lobster® restaurant
properties owned by VEREIT. GGC acquired a $204 million pool of properties from VEREIT and,
through a strategic partnership, GGC and VEREIT will
opportunistically divest an additional $400
million of properties by executing single- or multi-unit
dispositions at accretive valuations.
Glenn Rufrano, Chief Executive
Officer of VEREIT, stated, "Our Red Lobster restaurant portfolio
has been a successful investment. As part of our business plan, we
are enhancing our broader portfolio by reducing our overall
exposure to restaurant real estate and providing the proper
risk-return relationship. We're very pleased with the outcome
of this transaction and the opportunity to grow our strong
partnership with Golden Gate Capital."
Josh Cohen, Managing Director of
Golden Gate Capital, said, "The acquisition of these Red Lobster
properties will generate attractive returns for our investors and
reflects our continued confidence in the strength of the Red
Lobster brand, its management team and the future growth prospects
of the business. Red Lobster has made tremendous strides since the
acquisition including refocusing on its core customers, developing
new and exciting dishes for the whole family, and continuing its
international expansion with 15 new restaurant openings. These
changes are translating into clear results – Red Lobster's
performance as an independent company has been outstanding, as
demonstrated by its four consecutive quarters of positive
same-store sales since our acquisition."
Kim Lopdrup, Chief Executive
Officer of Red Lobster, added, "Since the close of the Golden Gate
acquisition of Red Lobster and the original sale of the restaurant
properties to VEREIT, this has been an outstanding partnership. We
are very pleased to see Golden Gate's continued confidence in our
business via these additional investments in the fundamental assets
of our company. We look forward to working with Golden Gate, VEREIT
and our 58,000 tremendous team members to continue to build Red
Lobster into a world-class casual seafood company."
The Red Lobster restaurants that are part of this transaction
will continue to operate without change or disruption, in the same
manner that has delighted guests for decades.
About VEREIT
VEREIT is a leading, full-service real
estate operating company with investment management capability.
VEREIT owns and actively manages a diversified portfolio of retail,
restaurant, office and industrial real estate assets with a total
asset book value of $18.7 billion
including 4,572 properties totaling approximately 100.9 million
square feet. Additionally, VEREIT manages $6.6 billion of gross real estate investments on
behalf of the Cole Capital® non-traded REITs. VEREIT is a publicly
traded Maryland corporation listed
on the New York Stock Exchange. Additional information about VEREIT
can be found on its website at www.VEREIT.com.
About Golden Gate Capital
Golden Gate Capital is a
San Francisco-based private equity
investment firm with over $15 billion
of capital under management. The principals of Golden Gate
have a long and successful history of investing across a wide range
of industries and transaction types, including going-privates,
corporate divestitures, and recapitalizations, as well as debt and
public equity investments. Golden Gate is one of the most active
investors in multi-unit consumer companies with leading brands.
Representative investments include Red Lobster, California Pizza
Kitchen, ascena, Payless ShoeSource, Eddie
Bauer, Express, Zales, J.Jill and Pacific Sunwear. For
additional information, visit www.goldengatecap.com.
Forward Looking Statements
Information set forth
herein (including information included or incorporated by reference
herein) contains "forward-looking statements" (within the meaning
of section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and in
Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended),
which reflect VEREIT's expectations regarding future events. The
forward-looking statements involve a number of assumptions, risks,
uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to
differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking
statements. Generally, the words "expects," "anticipates,"
"targets," "goals," "projects," "intends," "plans," "believes,"
"seeks," "estimates," variations of such words and similar
expressions identify forward-looking statements, and any statements
regarding VEREIT's future financial condition, results of
operations and business are also forward-looking statements. These
forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks,
uncertainties and assumptions, most of which are difficult to
predict and many of which are beyond VEREIT's control. If a change
occurs, VEREIT's business, financial condition, liquidity and
results of operations may vary materially from those expressed in
its forward-looking statements.
The following factors, among others, could cause actual results
to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements:
VEREIT's plans, market and other expectations, objectives,
intentions and other statements that are not historical facts; the
developments disclosed herein; VEREIT's ability to execute on and
realize success from its business plan; the ability for VEREIT and
GGC to effectively divest certain properties at accretive
valuations; VEREIT's ability to grow its partnership with GGC;
VEREIT's ability to reduce its overall exposure to restaurants; and
continuation or deterioration of current market conditions.
Additional factors that may affect future results are contained in
VEREIT's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
(the "SEC"), which are available at the SEC's website at
www.sec.gov. VEREIT disclaims any obligation to publicly update or
revise any forward-looking statements to reflect changes in
underlying assumptions or factors, new information, future events
or other changes, except as required by law.
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SOURCE VEREIT, Inc.