New Mexico State Investment Council is one of a number of investors that has chosen to maintain its exposure to a $14.6bn (€12bn) life sciences property portfolio managed by Blackstone.
The $29bn endowment was among limited partners in Blackstone Real Estate Partners (BREP) VIII given the option to stay invested in BioMed Realty by transferring their commitments to a new open-ended, core-plus vehicle.
A $25m commitment will be transferred from BREP VIII to Blackstone BioMed Life Science Real Estate, and New Mexico SIC has decided to double its investment by committing a further $25m.
New Mexico SIC told IPE Real Assets: “Life science is an attractive sub-sector of office space and there is very strong momentum occurring with the property type now.
“This will be the first time that we have invested in a commingled fund solely focused on the life-science property type.”
Blackstone raised $7.5bn for the new fund from investors including Bouwinvest, which invests internationally on behalf of Dutch pension fund BpfBouw.
The new fund has enabled Blackstone to continue managing the 11.3m sqft porfolio – which it bought for $8bn in 2015 – rather than selling it outright.
New Mexico SIC said it considers its investment in the new fund to have a core-plus profile and has a net target return of 12%.
According to New Mexico SIC, Blackstone BioMed Life Science Real Estate has a four-year lock-up period.
The fund has 80 operational assets, which represent 80% of its value, and a development pipeline.
The operational assets are 95% leased with an average-weighted lease term of seven years.
They are located in five markets, with the majority (54%) in Boston/Cambridge in the US. The rest are located in in San Francisco (19%), San Diego (17%), Seattle (5%), and Cambridge in the UK (5%).
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