May 1--Mack-Cali Realty Corp., owner of two-dozen North Jersey office buildings, reported $68 million in funds from operations, or 84 cents a share, in the first quarter, a 4 percent decline from $71 million, or 88 cents, a year ago.

The Edison-based real estate investment trust said that despite the reluctance of businesses to sign leases -- a problem affecting many commercial real-estate landlords -- it had fared well in a sour economy and unstable capital markets.

"Our portfolio continues to outperform most of the markets where we operate with lease rates exceeding market averages in northern and central New Jersey, in Westchester, and in Washington, D.C.," Mitchell Hersh, Mack-Cali's president and chief executive officer, said in a conference call with analysts Thursday morning.

Funds from operations, or FFO, is a widely used metric for measuring the performance of REITs, which distribute 90 percent of their taxable income to shareholders to maintain tax breaks.

Mack-Cali reported a virtually unchanged FFO in the first quarter, compared with the same period a year ago, excluding a non-cash charge for a write-down of its investment in a joint venture in Boston.

Mack-Cali owns 22 office buildings in Bergen County and two in Passaic County.

In its earnings report, the company pointed to new leases, including two in North Jersey. Among them were a lease for 41,529 square feet at 300 Tice Blvd. in Woodcliff Lake signed by the Eisai Corp. of North America, and a lease for 16,965 square feet at 1 Bridge Plaza in Fort Lee signed by Palisade Capital Management LLC.

Mack-Cali's stock gained 25 cents, or 1 percent to $26.86 Thursday in New York Stock Exchange trading.

After the close of trading, Mack-Cali said it would offer 6.5 million shares of common stock and use the proceeds to repay borrowings under its unsecured revolving credit facility and for "general corporate purposes." At Thursday's closing price, the amount raised would total $174.6 million.

E-mail: tangel@northjersey.com

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