Blackstone is doubling down on its e-commerce bet with another multibillion dollar industrial portfolio deal.
The company is buying Colony Capital’s national warehouse portfolio for $5.9 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Blackstone also struck a deal in June to buy a similar portfolio from GLP for $18.7 billion, although it has already started to sell portions of that portfolio.
The portfolio Colony sold to Blackstone spans 60 million square feet across 465 warehouses in 26 markets. Areas of strong concentration include northern New Jersey, California, Florida, Dallas and Atlanta.
Tom Barrack’s Colony has been aiming to transition away from traditional real estate holdings and toward investments in digital infrastructure and real estate like cell phone towers and data centers. It’s aiming to sell up to 90 percent of its $20 billion real estate portfolio by the end of 2021.
Activity in the industrial sector has skyrocketed as e-commerce giants like Amazon continue to eat up more and more space to store the goods people buy online, and Blackstone has so far been one of the most aggressive players.
“We are seeing accelerating demand for warehouse space in dense population centers, as goods move online and retailers and consumers alike seek faster delivery times,” Blackstone executive Nadeem Meghji told the Journal. [WSJ] — Eddie Small