Blackstone Group Inc. has raised $20.5 billion for the largest global real estate fund, as the world's biggest manager of alternative assets refills its coffers to make property investments.
The New York-listed firm said in a statement that the new fund, named Blackstone Real Estate Partners IX, has already struck its first deal. The fund had in June agreed to acquire the US warehouse assets of Singapore-based logistics provider GLP for $18.7 billion. This deal is likely to be completed in coming weeks, the private equity firm said.
“Despite the challenging investment environment, we continue to see compelling opportunities around our highest conviction investment themes,” said Ken Caplan, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate. “BREP IX’s scale allows us to commit capital globally in a differentiated set of complex transactions.”
The new global fund's final closing comes just four years after Blackstone raised $15.8 billion for its predecessor. Blackstone is also investing two regional funds, the €7.9 billion BREP Europe V and the $7.2 billion BREP Asia II; it had raised https://www.vccircle.com/blackstone-raises-9-4-bn-in-two-new-asia-funds/ the Asia fund just last year.
Blackstone is one of the biggest real estate investors worldwide and has $154 billion of assets under management. It is also one of the biggest investors in India's property market , where it has committed almost $6 billion over the past eight years.
The PE firm's India investments have been mostly in office and retail real estate segments as the housing market continues to struggle. Just on Wednesday, Blackstone agreed to acquire the 50% stake it didn't already own in Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd's office assets for Rs 4,420 crore ($616 million).
In August, it had agreed to purchase Global Village Technology Park in Bengaluru from Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd for an amount between Rs 2,600 crore and Rs 3,000 crore ($365-421 million).
In July, it struck a deal to acquire an office building in Powai, Mumbai from L&T Realty Ltd for Rs 700 crore.