EQT Exeter Snaps Up 4.5 MSF of Industrial

The assets were 90 percent leased at the time of sale.

Aerial shot of the four buildings comprising the first phase of The Hub at London Groveport, an industrial park in Lockbourne, Ohio.
In October, EQT acquired the first phase of The Hub at London Groveport in greater Columbus, Ohio. Image courtesy of JLL.

EQT Exeter, through its EQT Exeter Industrial Value Fund VI, has acquired 33 industrial assets in various markets nationwide, totaling about 4.5 million square feet. The fund closed at $4.9 billion last July, exceeding its target of $4 billion.

The average building size is more than 138,000 square feet. The big-box and last-mile properties are in four regional markets, including the Southeast (Richmond, Va., Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla.); the Ohio River Valley and vicinity (Louisville, Ky., Cincinnati and Indianapolis); the Midwest (Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Minnesota); and El Paso, Texas.

The properties were about 90 percent leased at the time of sale to 34 different tenants. The investor plans to lease-up the remaining 428,000 square feet of available space across the assets.


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EQT Exeter has been an aggressive buyer of industrial assets recently. Properties included 1.6 million square feet in Columbus, Ohio, 860,200 square feet in Phoenix and a 312,600-square-foot portfolio in Seattle and Portland, Ore.

The company, which is the real estate division of investment giant EQT AB, currently has about $29 billion of equity under management. EQT Exeter specializes in logistics/industrial, office, life science and residential properties in Europe, the Americas and Asia.

CBRE’s Chris Riley facilitated the 33-property deal, along with colleagues Ryan Bain, Frank Fallon, Judd Welliver, José Lobón, Jonathan Beard and Jonathan Bryan of CBRE National Partners.

Most industrial markets still strong

Among the industrial markets in the current transaction, and which are tracked by CBRE, the lowest vacancy rates in the third quarter were in Chicago and Kansas City, at 4.3 percent each. The highest vacancy rates were in Indianapolis at 10.6 percent and Atlanta at 9 percent.

Net industrial absorption for Q3 came in at 8.8 million square feet in Atlanta for the quarter, or about 1.1 percent of inventory, according to CBRE. In Chicago, the total was 10.7 million square feet, though considering the size of the market, a smaller percentage of the total supply: 0.83 percent.

Louisville and Jacksonville were among the top 10 for industrial growth in Q3, CBRE reports, meaning net absorption as a percentage of the market. Louisville saw growth of 1.8 percent, edging out Jacksonville, at 1.7 percent.