The secondaries business of Brookfield has stepped up as the successful party to invest in a 1.5 mln ft2 portfolio of logistics previously owned by Copley Point Capital and Davidson Kempner Capital Management.
Interested parties were invited earlier this year to consider recapitalising the so-called Block Industrial UK portfolio by creating a new joint venture to gain access to 10 assets.
Terms of the agreement mean that Brookfield’s secondaries group is investing £180 mln (€216 mln), some £125 mln of which is in equity to help accelerate cap ex initiatives.
Copley will retain an economic interest in the assets and will perform ongoing asset management and development work.
Copley is the principal investment firm and asset manager of former Gramercy Europe MD and co-founder, Michael Heal, which was established in 2018 and manages around £300 mln of assets for Davidson Kempner.
The portfolio of 10 assets that Brookfield has invested in are described as ‘high quality’ in the Midlands, Yorkshire and southern England.
‘We expect to grow the platform through defensible add-on acquisitions, with three deals due to exchange imminently,’ said Heal. ‘In parallel we will continue to grow our platform with Davidson Kempner, which has shifted its focus to ground up spec developments of UK logistics. That platform has several deals already acquired, and a large pipeline it is executing.’
Alexis Prevot, MD at Brookfield Real Estate Secondaries, said the deal marked the entry into the European real estate secondaries space and re-entry into UK logistics.
The recap is the latest in a series of European logistics investments by Brookfield, which has a portfolio totalling more than 25 mln ft2 across seven European countries.
