CHICAGO, May 21, 2015 – Mesirow Financial announced that it successfully acquired the 133 acre, 1.4 million square foot Verizon operations center located in Basking Ridge, New Jersey for $650.3 million. Verizon will lease back the full property for a 20-year term with options to extend.

Led by Senior Managing Directors Garry Cohen and Douglas Barker, Mesirow Financial’s Sale-Leaseback Capital group, along with its partner Kawa Capital, arranged for the purchase of the facility. The acquisition financing was structured in collaboration with Mesirow Financial’s Credit Tenant Lease (CTL) and Institutional Sales and Trading groups. Stephen Jacobson, senior managing director of Mesirow Financial’s CTL and Structured Debt Products group noted that the CTL financing involved one of the largest non-government single asset credit tenant lease transactions ever consummated.

The Verizon team was led by John M. Vazquez, senior vice president and head of global real estate for Verizon. Cushman & Wakefield acted as real estate advisor for Verizon on the transaction led by executive vice president Michael Rotchford.

“This real estate deal provides our company with immediate financial benefits and allows us to extract significant value from this asset while continuing to occupy the entirety of its office space,” said Verizon’s Vazquez.

Mesirow Financial’s Barker, stated, “We are excited to have partnered with Verizon to help monetize a very strategic asset within just five weeks from start to finish, evidencing the incredible degree of cooperation between both sides and the strength of what we expect to be a terrific long-term relationship.”

“This is an excellent example of the successful collaboration within Mesirow Financial’s growing capital markets business and our leading presence in the industry,” said Richard Price, chairman and chief executive officer of Mesirow Financial.