Private equity firm agrees £120m deal to buy 22 logistics sites as online shopping soars
Private equity firm Blackstone has agreed a £120m deal to buy 22 logistics sites across the UK as online shopping soars in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Blackstone’s purchase of the portfolio from Clearbell Capital, a private real estate fund manager, follows last week’s £4.2bn swoop by rival firm KKR for UK recycling company Viridor.
As mergers and acquisitions dry up globally in the face of the pandemic, private equity investors have continued to be relatively active, betting on sectors such as infrastructure and logistics.
“There will be deals that will fall away, but if the fundamentals are strong on the underlying assets, the deals will occur,” said Manish Chande, senior partner at Clearbell. “We’re not all headless chickens.”
Blackstone’s latest UK acquisition is further evidence of its conviction that ecommerce and delivery services will be an ever larger part of the retail market.
In September, James Seppala, head of Blackstone real estate in Europe, described last mile logistics sites as one of Blackstone’s “highest conviction, long-term investment themes”.
Blackstone has also been active in the sector outside Europe, agreeing a $5.9bn deal to buy Colony Capital’s industrial warehouse portfolio in the US last year.
Last June, it also sealed the largest ever private real estate deal, buying Singaporean logistics facilities’ provider GLP’s US warehouse portfolio for $18.7bn.
The spread of coronavirus — there were 316,746 confirmed cases as of Sunday according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University — has forced many retailers to close, with many people moving to online shopping instead.
Alibaba, the Chinese online retail giant, had a rush of demand for products such as face masks and hand sanitiser as coronavirus spread through China. Amazon has seen similar rises in demand from shoppers in the US and Europe who are staying at home during the outbreak. Amazon announced last week it was hiring 100,000 people to assist with deliveries.
Source ：Financial Times UK