Japan’s Hankyu Hanshin Properties Corp and a Malaysian national retirement fund have invested a total of A$536m (€324m) in a portfolio of logistics properties, held in an investment club managed by ESR.

IPE Real Assets understands that the Malaysian investor is Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (KWAP), according to a source familiar with the situation.

The vehicle owns a super prime Australian logistics portfolio consisting of 11 large multi-tenanted logistics estates across Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, with a total end value of A$3.2bn.

They joined existing investor, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the original investor in what was previously known as Logos Australia Logistics Venture (LALV). Logos, now merged with ESR, partnered with ADIA to establish the vehicle in 2014 to develop core logistics assets in Australia. ADIA lifted its stake in the venture in 2022.

Last year, Logos tasked global property agencies to identify new partners to take over its position in the platform.

A source told IPE Real Assets that the new investors had come into the “second iteration” of LALV, now known as Logos Australia Core Portfolio (LACP).

“ESR welcomes new investment partners including Hanshin Properties Corp joining ADIA in the new investment club,” said a source familiar with the situation, adding that the successful raisings for LACP further strengthened ESR’s position in the Australian industrial and logistics real estate market.

LALV developed the portfolio over the past nine years and it provides high-quality, purpose-built accommodation for global customers including the nation’s largest supermarket chain, Woolworths, and third party logistics and shipping companies DHL, Toll Transport and Maersk. Among its assets is a key site within the Sydney airport precinct, acquired from Qantas for $802m in 2021.

Hankyu Hanshin Properties has since brought in Mitsui OSK Lines, a Japanese shipping company, into the LACP partnership.

MOL Group ‘s president and CEO, Takeshi Hashimoto, said: “This marks MOL’s first industrial real estate business in Australia, in which it will acquire interests in 11 logistics properties in four Australian cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth) and engage in development and leasing operations in cooperation with ESR Group, which has US$156bn in assets under management globally.”

He noted that the portfolio consisted of existing and newly developed properties with 43 buildings located in major logistics hubs.

KWAP has a joint venture with Logos SE Asia which raised a RM1bn (€209m) for their first industrial development fund in in Malaysia in May this year. It had been investing with Logos since 2014 when the latter acquired a portfolio of industrial assets in NSW and Queensland for about A$220m on its behalf.

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