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First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc.

The nation’s largest provider of diversifiedindustrial real estate, First IndustrialRealty Trust owns, operates and hasunder development 100 million squarefeet of space, with a portfolioof more than a thousand propertiesand a local market presence in the top25 industrial markets coast to coast.

In today’s rapidly evolving and competitive business environment, corporate America is looking at its industrial real estate in a whole new way.

More and more, sophisticated companies large and small have begun to recognize the untapped potential of their industrial real estate assets, seeing them as a rich source of efficiencies that can be exploited to enhance operational flexibility, increase productivity – and improve their bottom lines.

Whether it’s choosing to monetize underutilized property, redevelop an older facility or reconfigure their supply chains, companies are looking to partner with an experienced real estate solution provider who can show them how to take full advantage of all the financial and operational benefits that accrue from strategic supply chain management.

First Industrial Realty Trust is that partner.

A Trusted Partner

Nearly 3,000 companies across the country operate their businesses from properties owned and managed by First Industrial Realty Trust. As the nation’s largest provider of diversified industrial real estate, First Industrial owns, operates and has under development 100 million square feet of space and a portfolio comprising more than a thousand industrial properties.

First Industrial satisfies the diverse industrial real estate needs of Fortune 500 corporations, middle-market companies and small commercial firms by offering end-to-end facility types across the entire industrial supply chain:

• Manufacturing;
• Light industrial;
• R&D/flex;
• Bulk warehouse; and
• Regional warehouse.

But more than available properties, today’s top corporations require a strategic real estate partner that can provide comprehensive solutions – solutions that First Industrial is best equipped to provide due to its singular blend of national presence, local management, pure industrial focus and fully diversified spectrum of facilities:

• Industrial focus. First Industrial develops, buys, sells and operates only industrial real estate. Its properties are leased or sold to corporations that manufacture, design, package, store and distribute goods in a wide variety of industries. Focusing solely on the industrial segment gives First Industrial a deeper understanding of corporate customers’ needs, resulting in a higher quality product and superior customer service.
• National presence. First Industrial’s 100 million-square-foot portfolio gives corporate customers access to the top 25 industrial markets in the nation. Leveraging this national platform, companies can implement multimarket strategies, take advantage of lower costs and economies of scale and work with a single supplier as their businesses evolve and grow.
• Diverse facility types. First Industrial’s portfolio is also diversified by the types of facilities it offers. Diversification allows First Industrial to give corporate customers a broad range of choices, increasing their likelihood of finding the facilities they require to serve their needs today, and tomorrow.
• Local management. First Industrial’s local managers average more than 20 years of industrial real estate experience, have strong ties within their communities and are experts in the markets they serve. By managing locally, First Industrial has an unparalleled ability to respond quickly to the needs of its customers.

These capabilities, particularly First Industrial’s local market expertise and emphasis on customer service, have enabled it to attain one of the highest tenant satisfaction ratings in the industrial real estate sector today.

Flexibility Is Key

Today, corporate America owns approximately 65 percent of the nation’s 26 billionsquare- foot industrial real estate, and maintaining supply-chain flexibility is key as companies seek to achieve important operational and financial goals.

Changes in the competitive landscape, mergers and acquisitions and the need for additional investment capital among other factors drive the need for alterations in a company’s real estate holdings. To rapidly implement such changes, corporations often find themselves with a need to buy, sell or lease a diverse range of industrial facility types in markets throughout the United States.

While there are many investors in the large and highly liquid market for buying and selling industrial real estate, most focus on a single facility type, such as bulk warehouse, or on one geographic market, thus limiting their ability to respond to the changing needs of the companies they serve.

First Industrial alone has both the infrastructure and the financial wherewithal to provide and rapidly implement comprehensive industrial real estate solutions. Through First Industrial’s Integrated Industrial Solutions approach, the company offers corporate America unmatched transaction flexibility with expertise in every service area critical to industrial space users, including:

• Single tenant/user sales;
• Development;
• Redevelopment;
• Surplus property disposition;
• Sale leaseback; and
• Leasing/management.

Providing Real-World Solutions

For the 10 years since its founding, First Industrial has been delivering innovative single- and multimarket solutions designed to help corporate real estate directors keep pace with their rapidly evolving industrial real estate needs.

Whether the transactions have been large or small, straightforward or complex, First Industrial has helped some of the nation’s leading Fortune 500 companies including General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Maytag Corp., Wal-Mart Stores, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Verizon Communications expand, relocate or undergo a complete supply chain reconfiguration. Following are several recent examples:

Full-Service Development And Redevelopment

First Industrial offers the full complement of build-to-suit services, from site selection and design and construction services to the purchase of additional land to accommodate future growth. The company also provides cost-effective redeveloping solutions, including purchasing and redevelopment of surplus or suboptimal facilities.

• When $6 billion consumer products company S.C. Johnson outgrew its 230,000- square-foot distribution center in Middletown, Pa., First Industrial developed a 500,000-square-foot bulk distribution facility for the company on 53 acres that offered expansion capabilities of an additional 150,000 square feet. The build-tosuit, completed on time and on budget, satisfied the real estate needs of long-time tenant S.C. Johnson, helping it expand as its business grew.
• When Exel Logistics, a global leader in supply chain management, needed to add significant new space to its warehousing and distribution operation, First Industrial acquired 775,000 square feet of obsolete manufacturing space for approximately $10 per square foot and redeveloped it to serve as distribution facilities for Exel’s key clients. The cost-effective acquisition, which included 100 undeveloped acres open for further development, enabled First Industrial to offer Exel attractively low rents.

Innovative Acquisition And Disposition Services

With extensive experience in acquiring both single facilities and entire portfolios, along with expertise in a number of innovative transaction structures, First Industrial can meet the needs of companies vacating locations, exiting product lines or simply trying to improve efficiencies – no matter where in the country their facilities are located.

And when it comes to surplus properties, First Industrial’s national scope, financial strength and capacity to complete multifaceted transactions enable the company to purchase excess corporate real estate and put its customers in facilities that better suit their needs.

• When aerospace giant McDonnell Douglas merged with The Boeing Co. and sought to reconfigure facilities, it needed to sell two buildings near its former St. Louis headquarters: one, a 125,000-square-foot facility used for manufacturing nose cones for fighter jets, the other a 35,000-square-foot warehouse. First Industrial acquired the two facilities and repositioned them for other uses, thus helping McDonnell Douglas liquidate its surplus real estate assets and rightsize its supply chain.
• When neighborhood discount chain F.W. Woolworth Co. was acquired by Foot Locker Inc., the world’s leading retailer of athletic footwear and apparel, Woolworth needed to dispose of more than 850,000 square feet of excess manufacturing and distribution space in various locations as part of its consolidation plans. First Industrial helped Woolworth dispose of its underutilized assets, redeveloping them into productive sites to meet the space needs of new users.

Flexible Leasing And Management

In addition to offering flexible lease terms to accommodate corporate customers’ specific project parameters, First Industrial can help unlock capital trapped in real estate assets through a sale-leaseback transaction, ensuring that a customer receives market value for its property and retains long-term control through lease.

• When Mrs. Fields, a chain of cookie products and baked goods, had outgrown its production and mail-order processing facilities in Salt Lake City and wanted to combine operations into a single larger facility, First Industrial leased the company a 27,440- square-foot building nearby that nearly tripled its space. The new space resolved Mrs. Fields’ capacity issues for the foreseeable future and put all of its mail-order baking and shipping operations under one roof.
• When APL Logistics, which operates a system of more than 200 warehouses, found itself with a building it didn’t want to own following the purchase of a distributorship, First Industrial helped the company avoid having to expend valuable capital to acquire the building by taking on purchase rights in exchange for a 15-year lease. The saleleaseback transaction, which helped unlock capital trapped in an unwanted real estate asset, netted APL more than $1 million.

For more detailed case studies on how First Industrial helped other major companies meet their supply chain needs, please visit www.ascet.com/case.asp.

An Invaluable Ally to Corporate America

Today, progressive companies nationwide look to First Industrial as a strategic partner that can provide the kind of multifaceted, multimarket industrial real estate solutions that maximize operating efficiencies, achieve greater financial flexibility and help them realize the full potential of their industrial assets.

With its national presence, diversified portfolio and local management in the nation’s top 25 industrial markets – from New Jersey, Atlanta and Tampa in the East, to Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis in the Midwest, and Dallas, Denver and Los Angeles in the Gulf and West – First Industrial has become an invaluable ally to corporate America in the efficient management of its supply chains.

For more information on how First Industrial’s Integrated Industrial Solutions can benefit your business, call 312.344.4300 or visit www.firstindustrial.com.