Rexford Industrial Realty Inc., a Los Angeles-based real estate investor that focuses on buying properties in infill locations in Orange County and other Southern California markets, is looking to go public.
The company late last month filed plans to raise up to $300 million in an initial public offering. Money raised will be used to buy properties and pay down debt, among other uses, according to regulatory filings.
Rexford has said in recent months that it’s looking to buy more than $500 million worth of industrial property in infill locations across the Southland.
The company’s registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission said Rexford is monitoring close to 31.4 million square feet of properties in the region that represent attractive potential investment opportunities.
Rexford also said it has submitted nonbinding offers on 2.8 million square feet of properties as of mid-May.
“There are substantial and attractive acquisition opportunities available to us in our target markets,” Rexford said in SEC filings, despite the tight market and rising prices for area industrial properties.
The company’s portfolio includes single- and multitenant warehouse and distribution centers, as well as light manufacturing facilities.
Rexford expects to hold an initial portfolio of 60 properties with about 6.6 million rentable square feet following the IPO. It will also manage an additional 20 properties with 1.2 million square feet.
The company’s OC portfolio currently totals seven industrial properties that combine for about 537,000 square feet.
Its most recent local acquisition was a 122,000-square-foot distribution facility in Santa Ana that it bought about two years ago. The company paid $8.5 million, or about $70 per square foot, for the property, at 3441 W. MacArthur Blvd., according to brokerage data.
Rexford’s executive team includes Chairman Richard Ziman, as well as Howard Schwimmer and Michael Frankel, who serve as co-chief executives.
Storage Conversion
The recently vacated, longtime home to the local operations of Japan-based NGK Spark Plug Co. in Irvine is being turned into a self-storage facility.
6 Whatney, a 125,000-square-foot building in the Irvine Spectrum, recently traded hands for $11.8 million.
Glendale-based Public Storage, a real estate investment trust that owns 2,080 self-storage facilities across the country, bought the property and plans to convert the industrial building into another such facility, according to brokerage data.
The sale ends a short period of ownership for Aliso Viejo-based CT Realty Investors, which bought the property from NGK Spark Plug in December in a venture with Chevy Chase, Md.-based Artemis Real Estate Partners.
The property traded hands for about $9.2 million in the December sale, according to brokerage data.
CT Realty officials said at the time of the purchase that they were planning to renovate the corporate headquarters facility for other potential businesses but changed course when the opportunity presented itself to turn a quick profit by reselling the building.
NGK Spark Plug, which moved its production of spark plugs from Irvine to West Virginia in recent years, this year relocated its West Coast distribution operations to a smaller location in the Spectrum, at 68 Fairbanks.
The company has had operations in Irvine for more than 30 years.
Hollywood Sale
Irvine-based Thompson National Properties LLC appears to have taken a hit on a famous Hollywood office complex it just sold after owning it for a little more than four years.
Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co. recently closed on the purchase of the former home of Eastman Kodak Co. on Santa Monica Boulevard. The real estate investor is reported to have paid Thompson National $24.5 million for the two-building complex, which runs about 103,000 square feet.
Thompson National, which started operations in 2008, paid Eastman Kodak a reported $31.4 million, or nearly $306 per square foot, for the property in 2009.
Eastman Kodak had been a tenant at the two-building office property since the 1920s, according to reports. It vacated the site after filing for bankruptcy last year.
Lincoln Property said it plans to spend about $5 million to renovate the buildings into creative-office space.
