American Financial Realty Trust, Jenkintown, Pa., has named Harold W. Pote, a member of the company's board of trustees, the new president and chief executive officer, effective immediately.Mr. Pote replaces Nicholas S. Schorsch, who has resigned as CEO, president and vice chairman of the board by mutual agreement with the board of trustees. In conjunction with his appointment, Mr. Pote outlined several broad initiatives that came out of the strategic review to reposition the company including: accelerating asset sales as AFR will aggressively market and dispose of non-core assets and selected other assets that are not central to its customer relationships, but offer an opportunity to unlock shareholder value. The company estimates that this could result in gross sale proceeds of between $1.5 and $2 billion. Also, AFR will look to rationalize liabilities and use net proceeds from these sales to fund future accretive asset acquisitions and implementation of the previously approved $100 million stock repurchase program. In addition the company will match dividend payout to operating cash flow, reduce MG&A and improve reporting transparency.
