William Polk Carey (May 11, 1930 – January 2, 2012) was an American businessman. He was the first person to apply leaseback financing to things other than automobiles. Carey started W. P. Carey &amp; Co. LLC. It is a corporate real estate financing company. The headquarters of the company are in New York City in 1973. The company is the largest publicly traded limited liability company in the world. , the company owns more than 1,300 properties in 24 countries. It owns more than of space.