US private equity giant the Blackstone Group is rapidly becoming the go-to company for sellers looking for a quick sale – and an investor with deep enough pockets to come to the rescue.

US private equity giant the Blackstone Group is rapidly becoming the go-to company for sellers looking for a quick sale – and an investor with deep enough pockets to come to the rescue.

Last week, it announced that it had signed one of the biggest deals since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008 with its acquisition of a $23 bn (€21.7 bn) real estate portfolio from GE Real Estate, the real estate arm of US-based General Electric Co, in partnership with San Francisco-based real estate lender Wells Fargo.

Even more remarkably, GE Real Estate did not contact Blackstone regarding the sale of its real estate business until just last month, a spokesman for GE Real Estate in the US told PropertyEU. ‘We have a 20-year relationship with Blackstone and they know us very well,’ he said. ‘They also have a great reputation when it comes to speed and certainty on deals, so I think this will go down as one of the fastest deals ever.’

GE Real Estate is also in the process of selling its real estate assets in Germany and Japan and is hoping to be ‘out of the real estate debt and equity business by the year-end,’ the spokesman added.

Subsequently, Blackstone’s ability to pull off a deal on this scale in mere weeks is helping to cement its reputation as the go-to investor for sellers seeking a quick sale - to a buyer who has billions to spare.

Under the terms of the deal, Blackstone’s BREP Europe IV fund will acquire GE Real Estate’s European equity real estate assets for €1.9 bn. These consist of offices, logistics and retail properties, largely in markets such as the UK, France and Spain. Blackstone’s latest flagship global real estate fund, BREP VIII, will also acquire GE Real Estate’s US equity assets for $3.3 bn.

This includes offices in locations such as Southern California, Seattle and Chicago. Blackstone’s real estate debt fund BREDS will also purchase GE’s performing loans in Australia and Mexico for $4.2 bn. In addition, Blackstone’s mortgage REIT, BXMT, will acquire GE Real Estate’s $4.6 bn portfolio of first mortgage loans in the US, with Wells Fargo providing the financing.

Wells Fargo, for its part, is to acquire a $9 bn portfolio of performing first mortgage commercial real estate loans in the UK, the US and Canada.