Bahrain-based alternative asset manager Investcorp acquired 64 industrial properties worth $640 million across the US, tapping into the industrial and logistics sector, which is benefiting from strong tailwinds driven by e-commerce.
The properties, spread across approximately 5.6 million square feet, are located across seven major US markets including Chicago, Dallas, New York metro, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia and St Louis, Investcorp said on Tuesday.
The latest investments, all industrial warehouses that are 95 per cent leased, boost the company's US industrial real estate holdings to approximately $3.5 billion across more than 425 buildings.
“Our investment strategy has long approached the US industrial market with optimism, due to increased demand brought about by the rise of e-commerce and evolving supply chain challenges,” said Khulood Ebrahim, real estate product specialist at Investcorp.
“We believe that our latest acquisitions ... should be well-equipped to deliver attractive potential returns for our investors.”
Amid record demand, rent growth and investment activity, US industrial real estate will "stay hot in 2022", property consultancy CBRE said in a recent report.
The requirement for space from e-commerce will trickle down the supply chain from retailers to wholesalers, who will need to hold more inventory.
"Demand will primarily be driven by growing e-commerce sales, the improving economy, population migration and the need for onshore 'safety stock' inventory to avoid the supply chain disruptions of the past 18 months," the report stated.
The latest acquisition boosts Investcorp's overall US real estate activity during the past 12 months to $4bn, with $2.5bn of new acquisitions and $1.5bn of dispositions, it said.
The company is among the 10 largest cross-border buyers and sellers of US real estate over the past three years, according to US-based Real Capital Analytics.
Investcorp also set up a new venture with two leading sovereign wealth funds to acquire industrial property assets in the US last year.
Since 1996, the company has acquired more than 1,100 properties for a total value of approximately $23bn.
Investcorp aims to more than double its assets under management to $100bn in seven years' time, from $37.6bn as of last June, its executive chairman Mohammed Alardhi told Bloomberg in September.
