Oxford Properties Group, the property arm of Canadian pension fund Omers, has made its debut investment in the European sheds sector with a £200 mln (€228 mln) equity commitment to a new dedicated logistics development platform sponsored by GLP, European Development Partners I (GLP EDP I).
The new platform, which was created following GLP’s acquisition of Gazeley at the end of 2017, will facilitate the development of Gazeley’s prime logistics sites across the UK, Germany and France.
This is a follow-on investment to Oxford’s participation in the privatisation of GLP, a global provider of logistics facilities and one of the world's largest real estate managers, which completed in January 2018.
'Oxford Properties has been looking for a suitable investment in the European logistics sector for some time, and the tightly controlled market makes it difficult to build up a direct platform incrementally,' commented Paul Brundage, executive vice president and senior managing director, Europe and Asia Pacific at Oxford.
'Our investment into GLP EDP I provides us day one access to a core development portfolio of scale, managed by one of the best fully integrated logistics teams in Europe. We will be working alongside some of the very best in the market to build new relationships and strengthen existing partnerships, helping to further our long-term objective to build a greater presence in this sector in the UK and Europe,' Brundage added.
According to Oxford Properties, the GLP EDP I investment is part of a wider strategy to increase its exposure to the logistics sector, which is benefitting from global economic growth and a structural shift towards e-commerce.
'Online retailers typically require between two and three times the logistics space of traditional brick-and-mortar retailing and with European logistics infrastructure much earlier in its development than the US and Asia, now is a particularly attractive time to invest,' the company said in a statement.
The GLP EDP I investment builds on Oxford’s owned and managed 13 million ft2 (1.2 million m2) logistics portfolio in North America.
