Blackstone has bought GIC’s 49% stake in Dexus Australia Logistics Trust (DALT) for about A$2.1bn (€1.3bn).
Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund formed DALT, which owns 77 logistics assets, mostly in Sydney and Melbourne, in 2018.
It is the third investment by Blackstone for its Asian core-plus real estate strategy, following the acquisition of an office building in Singapore and a residential portfolio in Japan.
Chris Tynan, head of real estate Australia at Blackstone, said: “We continue to bring our global scale and expertise in investing in logistics to the Australian market.
“Over the last five years, we’ve been active in the premium-grade logistics sector in Australia. While online sales continue to soar, Australia’s e-commerce penetration rate continues to be low relative to that of other major logistics hubs around the world. We believe there’s tremendous opportunity for growth.”
Frank Cohen, Blackstone’s global head of core-plus real estate, said: “The transaction significantly increases our Asian core-plus real estate exposure to the logistics space, and is consistent with our strategy of overweighting high-conviction sectors and locations.”
Dexus said Blackstone had made an unsolicited approach to buy the 49% interest and that the existing management arrangements for DALT remained unchanged.
Darren Steinberg, Dexus CEO, said: “We are pleased to have worked with GIC to grow this high-quality portfolio. This new relationship provides a stable long-term source of capital to invest alongside us.”
Lee Kok Sun, GIC’s chief investment officer for real estate, said: “The attractive offer from Blackstone is clear testament to the high-quality portfolio that the GIC-Dexus partnership has built.”
He said GIC continued to be confident in the long-term growth of the Australian market, including the logistics sector, which he expected would generate more investment opportunities.
Earlier this year, Blackstone sold its Milestone Logistics portfolio in Australia for more than A$3.8bn to ESR and GIC.
