Private equity firm Blackstone Group Inc., which has a large portfolio of real estate assets in the country, has teamed up with Mumbai-based Hiranandani Group to forge an investment platform dedicated to warehousing assets.
The platform has brought under its fold Talegaon Industrial Parks Pvt. Ltd, Juturna Developers Pvt. Ltd, Volumnus Developers Pvt. Ltd and a land parcel from Hiranandani, according to a disclosure.
These assets are located in Pune, Chennai, Nashik and Durgapur. The platform spent around $100 million (Rs 710 crore) on these transactions. Overall, the equal joint venture has a corpus of $350 million (about Rs 2,500 crore).
The joint venture partners intend to develop additional warehouses and industrial parks across India.
Blackstone has so far invested over $5 billion in the country's real estate across commercial, retail, hospitality and residential segments. With the latest deal, it has added a new asset to its portfolio. VCCircle had reported about its plan to venture into the warehousing segment last year.
“We have a very bullish view on the economy in the long term. Logistics and warehousing will be one of the major beneficiaries of this growth,” Niranjan Hiranandani, founder and managing director at Hiranandani Group, told Mint in a recent interview.
Blackstone also has a separate vertical for retail assets in the country, Nexus Malls. The firm started its journey with investments in commercial real estate and gradually expanded to retail and hospitality segments.
It is also the first investor to test the market for real estate investment trusts (REITs) along with its partner Embassy Group. It is also taking public its REIT with another real estate partner – K Raheja Group – in the next few months.
India’s warehousing and logistics segment has gained favour among investors over the past few years thanks to factors such as the government’s decision to grant infrastructure status to the segment and implementation of the goods and service tax.
Many global firms have bet on the segment, either directly or through tie-ups with local developers.
The Xander Group last year set up a platform for warehousing assets. The real estate arm of Morgan Stanley Investment Management recently bought a majority stake in a project of Gurgaon-based Pragati Warehousing. Last year, it had bought a majority stake in KSH Infra Pvt. Ltd, a Pune-based industrial logistics park developer.
The Indian arm of global logistics player ESR has tied up with Future Group to develop warehousing parks. Warburg Pincus has formed a platform with Embassy Group to develop warehousing assets while Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has backed warehousing developer IndoSpace.
