Blackstone Ramps Up Logistics Portfolio Through $2.8B Acquisition
Blackstone has shelled out $2.8B for a logistics portfolio totaling 17.4M SF. Cabot Properties Inc. sold the Value Fund V portfolio, which includes 124 industrial properties, in two separate transactions.
The sale “completes our most ambitious logistics property investment program over the past 20 years,” Cabot CEO and Chairman Franz Colloredo-Mansfeld said in a statement. Blackstone and Cabot have now closed nearly $5B in real estate deals over the past four years.
Two Blackstone affiliates were the buyers: Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. and Blackstone’s European Core+ business. In the first deal, the REIT acquired 102 buildings in a U.S. portfolio totaling 15.2M SF situated in California, Pennsylvania, Florida and New York. In a separate deal, the European affiliate closed on 22 properties totaling 2.2M SF of industrial space across in-demand European markets including the U.K., Amsterdam and Germany.
The portfolio was created over a series of 90 transactions that kicked off in 2016. The buildings are leased to a variety of industrial users, including e-commerce companies, a sector that continues to generate significant tailwinds for the logistics industry.
The deal adds to Blackstone’s investment push in global logistics assets that has been ramping up over the past decade, Bloomberg reports. In 2012, the company created its warehouse business arm Logicor, which it sold to China Investment Corp. in 2017 for nearly $13.9B.
Blackstone also handles its industrial activity through Link Logistics Real Estate, which operates north of 400M SF of logistics facilities, according to its website. Over the past two months, Link has paid about $329M in two transactions in Massachusetts.
BofA Securities, CBRE and Eastdil Secured represented Cabot in the deal, along with legal counsel from Goodwin Procter. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal counsel to Blackstone.
