Teresa Zhuge, GLP China’s executive vice chairman, told the media, “The launch of GLP China Income Fund II is consistent with several key elements of our strategy, including recycling assets and further growing our fund management platform.

“Demand from institutional investors to partner with GLP in China continues to be strong and we plan to establish additional new income and development funds there.”

Last year, GLP’s Japan-focused REIT raised around $532 million in a global offering to acquire seven Japanese warehouse properties, the company said in a statement. The portfolio of assets purchased by GLP Japan Real Estate Investment Trust included six Greater Tokyo facilities and one Osaka-area warehouse. They had a combined leasable area of roughly 328,000 square metres, the company said. The portfolio acquisition was completed on December 11th, 2020.

GLP further added that it was GLP J-REIT’s biggest acquisition since its initial public offering (IPO) in 2012. The portfolio acquisition now places the company among the largest logistics listed trusts in Japan.

Yoshiyuki Miura, president of GLP Japan Advisors said that during 2020, GLP J-REIT raised approximately $737 million of capital the company is focused on executing its expansion and growth strategies to strengthen its position as a market leader in the J-REIT market.

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The deal also includes debt, where Blackstone will take in $8 billion in net debt. With that, the acquired assets will be divided into two different units which will be controlled by the US group.

The transaction was announced on Sunday. After the sale, GLP will invest its efforts in expanding its presence in China, America, and Europe.

Global investors are spending billions of dollars to acquire companies in the logistics sector. One reason for the accelerated acquisitions is because of the growing demand in e-commerce.

Ken Caplan, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate, said, “Logistics is our highest conviction global investment theme today, and we look forward to building on our existing portfolio to meet the growing e-commerce demand.”

In 2017, Blackstone sold its European warehouse firm Logicor to China Investment Corporation $13.8 billion. The deal allowed Blackstone to strengthen its presence in China.

Blackstone’s real estate business was founded in 1991. Anthony Myers, Blackstone’s Head of Real Estate Europe, said, “We built Logicor through over 50 acquisitions to be a premier pan European logistics real estate company. It will now have an excellent new long term owner.”

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The joint venture, by affiliates of GLP and Brookfield, intends to install 300 MW of rooftop solar projects over the next three years, with a broader 1 GW development pipeline, which is equivalent to the annual power consumption of approximately 750,000 households.

The partnership will leverage GLP’s growing footprint of approximately 33mn square meters of logistics facilities in China and Brookfield’s extensive expertise as a leading global owner, operator and developer of renewable power assets. The partners expect to pursue development opportunities on third party-owned rooftops in the country, and may expand into other areas of cooperation in the future.

Ming Mei, Co-Founder and CEO of GLP, said: “This new partnership with Brookfield will allow us to leverage each other’s strengths to further capitalize on GLP’s high-quality assets. Investing in infrastructure beyond GLP’s logistics platform is part of our strategy to develop an ecosystem that harnesses technology to deliver better outcomes for our customers and communities.”  

“This partnership represents an attractive opportunity to expand our footprint in China’s rapidly growing renewables market, with a strong local partner in GLP,” said Bruce Flatt, CEO of Brookfield Asset Management.

Stewart Upson, CEO of Brookfield Asset Management Asia Pacific, said, “We look forward to working closely with GLP and leveraging our experienced local operating team and significant renewables development expertise to establish a leading rooftop solar platform in China.”

GLP is a leader in building environmentally-friendly logistics facilities globally. In Japan, GLP is one of the largest solar power providers from rooftop panels on logistics facilities. In addition, GLP buildings across China, Japan, the US, Europe and Brazil have achieved LEED certification, including four LEED Platinum certifications, the highest possible rating.

Brookfield, a leading global alternative asset manager, operates one of the largest, public pure-play renewable businesses globally. Its portfolio consists of hydroelectric, wind, solar and storage facilities in North America, South America, Europe and Asia and totals more than 16,000 megawatts of installed capacity.

Brookfield also has an extensive history of developing renewable power projects globally. Through this partnership, Brookfield is well positioned to advance the significant backlog of projects and to expand its existing capabilities in distributed rooftop solar generation.

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