Blackstone has bought two of the UK's best-known industrial estates – Trafford Park and Heywood Distribution Park in the North West – from fellow US investment giant Harbert Management Corporation for around £480 million, CoStar News understands.
The transactions for the two major estates in the Manchester area are understood to have completed in the last few days, according to sources.
DTRE is understood to have been advising Harbert on the sales, while CBRE is advising on the buy side.
It is thought that Trafford Park is selling for between £275 million and £280 million while Heywood Distribution Park is selling for between £200 million and £205 million.
On an in-place rent basis the yield is believed to be in the mid to high 4%.
HEREF III, Harbert Management Corporation’s then European real estate fund in which it co-invested, bought Heywood Distribution Park in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, Trafford Park in the Trafford area of Manchester and Kings Norton Business Centre and Meteor Park in Birmingham in 2012 from Segro for £205.5 million.
At the time, Trafford Park comprised 2 million square feet of property and alongside partner Canmoor Harbert has speculatively developed more premises to take the size of the estate past 4 million square feet.
The industrial estate forms part of the wider Trafford Park estate, the first purpose-built industrial park and now one of the largest mixed-use developments in Europe.
Heywood Distribution Park near Bury comprises more than 2 million square feet of industrial with major tenants including Wincanton, Aldi, Eddie Stobart, DFS, Aramex, Krispy Kreme, DPD and Argos.
Blackstone recently announced the final close of its latest global real estate fund, Blackstone Real Estate Partners X, with $30.4 billion of total capital commitments, which is the largest real estate or private equity drawdown fund raised on record.
It said logistics across the globe remained one of its primary targets for investment. Two weeks ago it agreed to an $860 million (£700 million) take-private of Industrials REIT, the UK-based multilet industrial-focused real estate investment trust.
All parties involved declined to comment.
Additional reporting from Bert Erik ten Cate.