Blackstone has agreed to acquire a 49 percent stake in the Dexus Australia Logistics Trust from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, with the private vehicle reported to be worth A$3.5 billion ($2.5 billion). The New York-based fund management giant, which just two days ago announced the $540 million acquisition of a stake in a Guangzhou logistics park, has made assembling, operating, and selling warehouse portfolios one of its core activities in recent years, as the growth of e-commerce and globalization of supply chains drive demand for modern distribution facilities.
Blackstone is paying the equivalent of $1.2 billion for GIC’s share of the logistics vehicle, with neither party having released financial details of the transaction. The purchase would allow Stephen Schwarzman’s shed-loving firm to reinvest a chunk of the $2.9 billion which it took in during April selling its Milestone Logistics portfolio in Australia to a joint venture between GIC and industrial specialist ESR. GIC had first announced in 2018 that it was investing in Dexus Australia Logistics Trust, with the sovereign investor committing at the time to a 25 percent stake in the core portfolio, with Dexus holding the remaining 75 percent in what was then an A$2 billion venture. Since founding the venture three years ago, GIC and Dexus have added to the initial seed portfolio through acquisition of existing properties and development sites, including buying a Queensland project for A$26.5 million in 2019, and acquiring plots in Sydney and Melbourne for a combined A$173.5 million in July 2020. Last month Blackstone announced that it had acquired Melbourne-based self-storage operator Fort Knox in a deal which local media priced at $297 million.