Singapore wealth fund GIC Pte is buying a portfolio of Japanese logistics assets from Blackstone Inc. for more than $800 million, in a deal that the US investment firm said was among the largest of its kind in the nation.
(Bloomberg) — Singapore wealth fund GIC Pte is buying a portfolio of Japanese logistics assets from Blackstone Inc. for more than $800 million, in a deal that the US investment firm said was among the largest of its kind in the nation.
The assets were developed by Daiwa House Industry Co. and comprise six warehouses with an average age of five years across Japan, GIC said in a statement on Friday.
GIC has been hunting for real estate deals in Japan, attracted by the falling yen and post-pandemic travel resumption. The sovereign wealth fund purchased a portfolio of hospitality assets from Seibu Holdings Inc. for 150 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in a deal that closed in the past year.
“This acquisition represents an attractive opportunity for GIC to further expand our exposure to logistics assets,” Goh Chin Kiong, GIC’s deputy chief investment officer for real estate, said in the statement.
For Blackstone, the sale generated “sufficient profits” for investors, said Taro Squires, a managing director in the real estate group in Tokyo. The company has an “extensive pipeline of investments in Japan,” and is selectively looking at prime opportunities in areas including data centers, logistics, hotels and residential, he said in an interview.
The six warehouses make up 4 million square feet (372,000 square meters), Blackstone said in a statement. The US alternative asset manager has been investing in Japanese real estate for the past 16 years, and said it’s one of its fastest-growing markets. It had a record year in 2022 in Japan real estate, with investments and sales valued at more than $2 billion, it added.
“Japan is a relatively healthy market, where the impact of inflation has been more muted than in the United States or Europe,” Daisuke Kitta, the firm’s head of real estate in Japan, said in an interview. “We continue to see tailwinds in the sectors we like.”
–With assistance from David Ramli.
(Updates with comments from Blackstone in fifth and seventh paragraphs)
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