Blackstone Lined Up For €1B Office Acquisition From Fortress And Ronan

Mammoth U.S. private equity fund Blackstone is in the running to purchase a duo of prime offices from Fortress and developer Ronan Group Real Estate.

Blackstone is closing in on the acquisition of two out of three properties that were placed on the market for a combined value of €1.3B last month, React News reported.

If the deal completes, Blackstone will acquire the Fibonacci Square development, which has been pre-let to Facebook on a 25-year lease. The 350K SF office block is being developed by RGRE as part of Facebook's new campus. The deal was the largest single office letting in Irish history at the time.

The second property is the 419K SF Spencer Place at North Wall Quay in Dublin 1, which has been taken by Salesforce.

A third site placed on the market as part of the original €1.3B deal was Waterfront South Central, which was acquired for an estimated €180M and came with planning for 300K SF of office space and 420 apartments.

The updated scheme had been boosted to include more than 1,000 resi units and 400K SF of office space, however a dispute over planning with Dublin City Council may have put Blackstone off acquiring the site.

Bisnow tipped Blackstone as a frontrunner for either all or part of the Fortress/RGRE portfolio earlier this month, with Blackstone having already sealed the deal to acquire a €400M deal slice of the Facebook HQ site adjacent to the new Fibonacci Square development in Ballsbridge from the Serpentine consortium.

The Blackstone deal meant it owned approximately 340K SF of the overall 870K SF Facebook campus that is being delivered on the former AIB Bankcentre site.

The latest acquisition cements Blackstone's interest as one of the largest international investors in Dublin in recent years. The long leases for both Salesforce and Facebook make the properties attractive to funds seeking safe returns.