Blackstone Acquires GICs Interest in Dexus Australian Logistics Trust

10 December 2021

Dexus today announced that Blackstone’s Core+ Real Estate strategy in Asia has signed a binding agreement to acquire GIC’s 49% joint venture interest in the Dexus Australian Logistics Trust (“DALT Partnership”).

The 49% interest has been acquired as a result of an unsolicited proposal by Blackstone with the existing management arrangements for DALT remaining unchanged.

Blackstone’s Core+ strategies focus on logistics, residential, office, life science office, and retail assets in global gateway cities.

The DALT Partnership was established in November 2018 and seeded with 55 assets from the Dexus industrial portfolio (with GIC acquiring an initial 25% interest) comprising core logistics properties and a development landbank. Since its establishment, DALT has grown through GIC’s acquisition of an additional 24% interest in the DALT portfolio, external acquisitions and the build out of the development pipeline to currently have exposure to 77 assets.

The portfolio features a circa 90% exposure to the strong performing Sydney and Melbourne markets and is weighted to traditional logistics facilities, which are leveraged to the growth of e-commerce.

Darren Steinberg, Dexus CEO, said: “We are pleased to have worked with GIC to grow this high-quality portfolio. This new relationship provides a stable long-term source of capital to invest alongside us. We welcome Blackstone onto our platform and look forward to continuing to drive the Partnership’s strong performance.”

Frank Cohen, Global Head of Core+ Real Estate, Blackstone, said: “We are pleased to both acquire a portfolio of best-in-class logistics assets in Australia and partner with Dexus. The transaction significantly increases our Asian Core+ Real Estate exposure to the logistics space and is consistent with our strategy of overweighting high conviction sectors and locations.”

Other investments in Asia this year under the Core+ strategy include the Eclipse (formerly The Sandcrawler), a Grade-A office building in Singapore anchored by tenants in fast-growing sectors of technology and media, and a portfolio of 38 modern residential assets concentrated in Japan’s major cities, Tokyo and Osaka.

Chris Tynan, Head of Real Estate Australia, Blackstone, said: “We continue to bring our global scale and expertise in investing in logistics to the Australian market. Over the last five years, we’ve been active in the premium-grade logistics sector in Australia. While online sales continue to soar, Australia’s e-commerce penetration rate continues to be low relative to that of other major logistics hubs around the world. We believe there’s tremendous opportunity for growth, supported by Australia’s strong e-commerce demand.”