Ares Management Corporation is bolstering its presence in the Mexican industrial real estate sector through the acquisition of Walton Street Capital Mexico.
Ares is buying the firm from Walton Street Capital, a $55bn (€49.3bn) Chicago-headquartered real estate firm which said it would focus on real estate equity and debt investing in the US.
Walton Street Capital Mexico is focused on the industrial sector and has $2.1bn in managed assets. Financial details of the transactions were not disclosed.
Under the leadership of managing partner and CEO Federico Martin del Campo, the firm has been active in Mexican real estate for more than two decades.
It will join the $52bn global real estate business of Ares, which has established a $28.1bn, 230sqft industrial portfolio apread across the US and Europe.
Michael Arougheti, CEO and president of Ares, said: “We believe that Federico and the team are aligned with our values and will provide a distinctive edge to the Ares real estate team.
“We are seeing a meaningful shift in supply-chain dynamics globally with Mexico emerging as an attractive location for skilled manufacturing and we believe that these trends will continue to increase demand for warehouse space in the country.”
David Roth, co-head of Ares US real estate, said: “We have strategically grown our industrial real estate platform over the last few years with partnership from Dave Fazekas, head of Ares industrial management, and the team, and believe that adding additional capability in Mexico is an important step to enhance our global offering.
“We believe that we are entering Mexico at an opportune time to capitalise on continued growth and outperformance of the industrial real estate sector in North America.”
Jeff Quicksilver, co-founder and managing partner of Walton Street Capital, said: “Walton Street is proud to have led the development of Walton Street Mexico into one of the preeminent private equity real estate managers in Mexico.
“The strategic timing of the sale allows our team to continue its focus on the growth of our US real estate equity and debt investment platforms.”
Martin del Campo said: “We believe there are cultural and skill set synergies between our two teams, which will support our ability to execute on our strategic growth objectives in Mexico.
“We look forward to working alongside Ares’ global real estate team in addressing an attractive industrial investment opportunity.”
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