China's CIC to pay €12.25bn for Blackstone's Logicor

Blackstone has confirmed the €12.25bn sale of its European logistics arm Logicor to China Investment Corporation.

The sale of Logicor, which owns a portfolio of assets totalling 147m sqft in 17 countries, has long been anticipated by the market.

Blackstone began assembling a portfolio of European industrial assets in 2012 and 2013.

A sale or IPO of Logicor was first mooted in 2016.

Most of Logicor’s assets are in the UK, Germany, France and southern Europe.

The sale to CIC is expected to close later this year.

Anthony Myers, Blackstone’s head of real estate for Europe, said: “We built Logicor through over 50 acquisitions to be a premier pan European logistics real estate company.

“It will now have an excellent new long term owner, and we have no doubt that it will go from strength to strength in a sector with hugely positive prospects.”

Mo Barzegar, Logicor’s chief executive, said the firm’s management are “excited about the company’s future prospects” under the ownership of CIC.

Logicor, he said, will continue to “deliver and exceed our customers’ expectations”.

A similar sale was carried out by Blackstone in the US in 2014, when Blackstone sold IndCor Properties, its US industrial platform, to GIC for $8.1bn (€6.52bn).

Blackstone recently overtook Brookfield Asset Management as the world’s largest real estate investment manager, according to a survey.

The New York-headquartered company has gross assets under management (AUM) of €143.2bn, according to the annual ANREV/INREV/NCREIF fund manager survey, beating Toronto-based Brookfield, which manages €140.5bn.

Last year, Brookfield topped the list, with Blackstone second.

In April, Blackstone revealed it had $32.2bn of “dry powder” to invest in global real estate.

The amount of capital is roughly one-third of the $94.3bn available to the private equity firm to invest across all asset classes, according to first-quarter results.