NEW YORK CITY — Blackstone Real Estate, a division of private equity behemoth Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), has agreed to acquire the entire U.S. logistics portfolio of Singapore-based investment manager GLP for approximately $18.7 billion.
The portfolio of distribution and fulfillment centers spans roughly 179 million square feet of urban infill space across 36 major markets, nearly doubling New York City-based Blackstone’s volume of U.S. industrial real estate holdings. The sale is expected to close sometime after Labor Day.
Blackstone cited a growing demand for e-commerce and the need by retailers to reconfigure their supply chains as the primary driving forced behind the deal.
“Logistics is our highest conviction global investment theme today,” says Ken Caplan, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate. “We look forward to building on our existing portfolio to meet the growing e-commerce demand.”
According to the Financial Times, GLP will use proceeds from the sale to return value to shareholders and to reinvest in other U.S. real estate assets. GLP, which has more than $64 billion in real estate and private equity assets under management, first entered the U.S. market in 2015 and quickly became one of the country’s largest owners of industrial real estate.
Blackstone has been active in growing its industrial footprint, having also acquired the assets of Gramercy Property Trust for $7.6 billion in 2018. That transaction added a portfolio of approximately 81 million square feet to Blackstone’s holdings. Blackstone’s real estate division has about $140 billion in investor capital under management.
Kirkland & Ellis served as legal counsel to GLP and Eastdil Secured LLC, Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as financial advisors to GLP. BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC served as financial advisors to Blackstone. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Eastdil Secured LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as Blackstone’s financing advisor. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett served as legal counsel to Blackstone.
Blackstone’s stock price opened at $37.61 per share on Monday, June 3, up from $32.45 per share a year ago.
— Taylor Williams