CBRE Investment Management to Buy $4.9B Industrial Portfolio

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In a milestone deal, CBRE Investment Management is set to acquire a $4.9 billion global logistics portfolio from Dallas-based Hillwood Investment Properties. Comprising 57 assets across 28.4 million square feet, the portfolio includes assets in both the U.S. and Europe.

The transaction would rank among the largest sales of industrial properties on record and would also likely be the largest acquisition to date by the CBRE Investment Management, previously known as CBRE Global Investors.

Asset sales are set to start closing in the first quarter and could continue through the year and into 2023. The portfolio includes 33 U.S. assets totaling 19.2 million square feet and 24 assets across Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom totaling 9.2 million square feet.

Because the deals have not yet closed, CBRE Investment Management declined to provide locations or other details about the assets covered by the agreement announced Monday.

As of Sept. 30, the firm had $133.1 billion in assets under management worldwide, including $35 billion in private logistics assets. Led by H. Ross Perot Jr., Hillwood has developed and acquired 223.1 million square feet of industrial properties across North America and Europe.

Leitner told the Wall Street Journal that about two-thirds of the Hillwood portfolio is built and leased while the remainder is either under construction or being leased. He added that the firm was attracted to the Hillwood portfolio because of its location in markets with large employment bases, transportation access and proximity to consumers—all drivers of e-commerce in the U.S. and Europe.

Growing Industrial Platform

CBRE Investment Management formed a team in June to enhance and better align its global logistics expertise. The firm has been actively growing its logistics platform over the past year. In October, a fund sponsored by CBRE Investment Management acquired 820 Exchange, a four-building, newly-constructed 952,764-square-foot industrial park in Haltom City, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth. A month earlier, the firm acquired a 29-acre site for an industrial building in Tracy, Calif., and a 287-acre development site in metropolitan Atlanta, both in partnership with Trammell Crow Co.

During the summer, a fund sponsored by the firm acquired Mount Comfort Logistics Center II, a new 505,872-square-foot Class A warehouse/distribution property in Greenfield, Ind. Located in the Indianapolis market, the fully leased property was completed in the first quarter of 2021 and is fully leased.

In July, the firm acquired Irving Crossing, a mixed-use facility in Irvine, Calif., for $180.8 million. Amazon is a tenant in the warehouse portion of the 393,673-square-foot property, which also includes a data center operated by Cyxtera.

And in August, one of the firm’s funds, CBRE Strategic Partners U.S. Value 9, raised a total of $2.3 billion in equity commitments from institutional investors across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It was the largest value-add fund to that date and exceeded its capital-raising target. At that time, about $1.2 billion had been used to purchase 12 properties including logistics assets. The total purchasing power of the fund and its co-investment vehicles was expected to reach $5.6 billion.