EQT Exeter Closes $4.9B Fund For U.S. Industrial Acquisitions
Private equity firm EQT Exeter has closed its latest fund, EQT Exeter Industrial Value Fund VI, at $4.9B, above its target of $4B. An earlier fund raised by the company closed at $2B.
The fund will specialize in industrial assets in the United States, specifically logistics properties with single tenants, including fulfillment centers and last-mile delivery hubs. EQT Exeter said that investor interest in the fund was strong, and from a diversity of sources domestic and overseas, including pensions funds, foundations, insurance and sovereign wealth funds.
EQT Exeter, which was formed when Swedish investment giant EQT AB bought Exeter Property Group in early 2021, has long been active in the industrial sector. Late in 2021, the combined entity sold a 328-property portfolio of distribution centers for $6.8B that Exeter Property Group had put together in the years before.
Industrial assets are still much in demand, though the sector doesn't quite have the heat that it did during the early years of the pandemic, when online retail sales ballooned.
U.S. industrial market fundamentals softened in Q1 2023, according to Colliers, as higher interest rates and other uncertainties about the economy inspired more modest levels of net absorption. In the first quarter of this year, tenants took a net of 73.8M SF nationwide, compared with 118.2M SF during the same quarter in 2022.
Supply is up as well. Some 118.2M SF of new industrial came online during the first quarter of 2023, compared with 97.2M SF a year earlier, Colliers reported.
