Blackstone is believed to be in advanced talks to buy a portfolio of industrial properties in Europe from Sydney-based Goodman Group.
Sources told IPE Real Assets that Blackstone and Goodman are close to a deal, which they expect is likely to be finalised early in the new year.
In Europe, Goodman currently manages 132 properties with a total assets under management of A$6.5bn.
IPE Real Assets was unable to obtain further information on the negotiations, with neither party prepared to comment on the potential deal.
Blackstone is known to be actively looking for logistics assets in Europe, and is reported to be also looking at buying back into Logicor, a pan-European logistics company that it sold to China Investment Corporation for €12.25bn in June this year.
This month a Blackstone fund is said to be seeking to buy a 10% stake in Logicor.
Meanwhile, Blackstone this week settled on the first tranche of payment for its third purchase of logistics assets for AUD400m from Goodman.
The US private equity group will settle on the two remaining tranches in early next year.
It exchanged contract on its third transaction with Goodman in late November to acquire six assets located mainly in Sydney and Melbourne.
It is reported that Deutsche Bank and OUB (one of Singapore’s big four banks) have underwritten an AUD715m four-year facility partly to fund the latest deal with Goodman.
The latest transaction lifts Blackstone’s total purchases from the Goodman group to AUD1.69bn, giving it an enlarged portfolio of some 40 logistics properties around Australia.
Blackstone acquired its first portfolio in June last year for AUD640m, followed by a second batch late in November for close to AUD650m.
It has also acquired logistics properties worth AUD126m from the listed Charter Hall Group.
However, as it continues to buy assets, Blackstone is also selling a portfolio of 10 logistics properties.
It is believed that the Singapore-based fund manager, ARA, is undertaking due diligence on the portfolio with a AUD200m price tag.
Those Blackstone assets came on the market in September, at around the same time when it decided to withdraw the sale of its AUD3bn retail platform in Australia.
It has opted to do further work on some of the shopping centres and to sell others individually.
*An earlier version of the story referred to Goodman as the single largest developer and owner of logistics assets in Europe.
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