Two Chinese logistics and infrastructure groups backed by Warburg Pincus are to merge to form DNE, a platform with more than US$11bn (€9.73bn) in assets under management.
D&J China and New Ease China announced a strategic merger and raised more than US$1.5bn from investors including Partners Group, StepStone, Sequoia Capital, CPE, and D1 Capital Partners.
Warburg Pincus and existing shareholders, including co-founder Sun Dongping, also participated in the funding round.
The enlarged company will own more than 10 million sqm of logistics, life-science and manufacturing parks, urban redevelopment projects and data centres.
“With the continued transformation of China’s economy and rapid development of the new economy, we see ample room for growth in the fields of new infrastructure,” said Sun Dongping, CEO of DNE.
“This merger marks the establishment of a leading new infrastructure platform in China. We have also set up a private equity investment platform to invest in high-growth tech-driven companies that complement our infrastructure ecosystem.”
New York-headquartered Warburg Pincus jointly established D&J China with Sun in 2014, and in 2018 bought into New Ease, based in Shanghai, with a US$400m investment.
D&J is a real estate platform with more than US$5bn in manufacturing parks, life science parks and IT parks in China’s tier-one cities. New Ease has grown rapidly, now owning more than 6.5m sqm of logistics assets.
