MPG Names New CEO

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MPG Office Trust Inc. on Monday named David L. Weinstein, one of its directors, as chief executive. The real estate investment trust formerly named Maguire Properties Inc., whose previous CEO resigned after a dispute with the board, also announced that it had hired a restructuring advisor.

Weinstein is a partner at New York real estate investment firm Belvedere Capital and has been an independent director since August 2008. Prior to that, he was a managing director of Westbridge Investment Group, a hospitality industry REIT. He earlier worked in various real estate investment units at Goldman Sachs & Co.

MPG, which owns office buildings primarily in Los Angeles and Orange counties, said Weinstein will lead a new phase of restructuring focusing on its main downtown Los Angeles properties. The first phase of the REIT’s reorganization is “substantially complete,” it said, with $2 billion in debt eliminated and $150 million in loan guarantees arranged.

The REIT has hired Frederick E. Chin’s Atalon Management Group LLC to advise the company. Chin recently helped restructure loans associated with Lake Las Vegas, a struggling 3,600-acre master-planned community in Henderson, Nev.

Weinstein replaces Nelson Rising who resigned earlier this month over disagreements with the board over in strategy. MPG has been selling off properties, mainly in Orange County, and taking other steps to reduce debt after many tenants went out of business or downsized during the downturn.

Shares were up 7 cents, or 3 percent, to $2.47 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

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