Global logistics specialist Goodman has raised US$1bn (€852m) from a club of investors to develop and own facilities in Brazil.
Chief executive Greg Goodman said documentation is under way and he expects it to be finalised before the end of the year.
Asked for details on the partners, Goodman would only say they were from the company’s existing investor base. It will be a club of “fewer than six” investors, and Goodman will hold a cornerstone stake.
In November last year, IPE Real Estate reported that Goodman was aiming to raise US$1bn for a Brazilian platform.
Earlier in 2016, Goodman took full ownership of assets held in joint venture with Brazilian company WT Torre. The new partnership is expected to be seeded with these assets.
But Goodman told IPE Real Estate that the new partnership will be “primarily looking for land and development”.
He said: “Currently, we have a number of sites and opportunities in due diligence. This will give the partnership a pretty strong boost running into the new calendar year.
“We are very focused on Sao Paulo. We are starting on a site around Sao Paulo and that will go into the partnership at some stage during this half.”
Within a year, the partnership will “certainly have a couple of buildings coming off the ground and hold a few good long-term sites catering for a few hundred thousand metres of industrial space”, he said.
It was also revealed that Goodman European Partnership, set up to fund developments in Europe, had raised €399m this year.
“We are the biggest industrial developer in continental Europe and we have a strong development pipeline that needs funding,” Goodman said.
The Goodman group delivered an average return of 14.4% across its partnerships in the past 12 months, and is forecasting double-digit returns for the current financial year.
The company has been deleveraging and said it had been improving the quality of its portfolio by selling AUD8bn (€5.4bn) of assets in the past three years.
Goodman said AUD1bn of assets in continental Europe and the UK will be sold, as part of an AUD2bn global asset recycling programme in the current financial year.
“We are focussing on locations around the large consumer markets,” he said. “So, for example, in the UK we are buying land and doing development along the M1 and inside the M25 [motorways].
“We have been really selective in regard to where we want to be, so as technology changes and advances in the next five years we will be in pockets with fundamental underlying strong demand.”
