Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank N.A. sold 31 of its Wisconsin branches Thursday in a sale-leaseback deal that netted the bank about $45.6 million, according to state records.
The branches are in Brookfield, Burlington, Cedarburg, Delafield, Grafton, Mequon, Mount Pleasant, Muskego, Paddock Lake, Pewaukee, Pleasant Prairie, Sussex, Waterford, Waukesha, Sauk City, Plover, Marshfield, Oregon, Verona, Appleton, Ashland, Mosinee, Ledgeview, Ashwaubenon, Janesville, Rock, Peshtigo, Eagle River, Mauston, Seymour and Baraboo.
The properties were sold to affiliates of San Diego-based real estate investment trust Realty Income Corp. The bank has secured long-term leases on each of the properties.
“This is part of what we call our sale-leaseback initiative where basically, we have sold a number of branches in our footprint to take advantage of the real estate market, which is pretty attractive right now,” BMO Harris spokesman Patrick O’Herlihy said. “This has nothing to do with our actual branch operations.”
O’Herlihy declined to say how BMO Harris Bank will be using the proceeds of the transactions.
BMO Harris has approximately 200 branches in Wisconsin and would not disclose how many of them are part of the sale-leaseback initiative. Wisconsin is one of the bank company’s largest markets, and BMO has about 3,000 employees in the Milwaukee area. It has about 600 branches nationally, mostly in the Midwest.
