The China Investment Corporation (CIC) group and Blakstone, owners of the Logicor logistics platform, have announced the sale of one of the most relevant portfolios of the year in Spain. A few months ago, Logicor commissioned JLL and Knight Frank to sell this portfolio of around 300,000 sqm.
The assets purchased by EQT Exeter are leased by Logicor to C&A, Cortefiel, Primark and Leroy Merlin, who use these warehouses as distribution centers, largely for e-commerce. Leroy Merlin has more than 120,000 sqm rented from Logicor in the town of Torija (Guadalajara), 70 kilometers from Madrid.
A large part of the portfolio that Logicor now sells was acquired in 2014 from Greater Europe, in an operation in which it added 319,000 sqm of warehouse space.
This deal confirms the high interest of investors in the logistics market, driven by the boom in electronic commerce, a trend accelerated by operators after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Logicor is one of the large logistics owners in Europe and Spain, and it has a portfolio of more than 600 assets in Europe, totalling 13.6 million square metres in seventeen countries. Logicor was created in 2012 by the Blackstone fund as a brand for its warehouses in Europe. In 2017, the US firm sold the company to China Investment Corporation for more than $12 billion. However, a few months later, the Chinese firm asked Blackstone to re-manage that pan-European portfolio and also resold 10% of the company to it.
EQT Exeter, on the other hand, is a Swedish fund manager, which has been present in Spain since 2019. It currently has an agreement with the Moraval group to invest in student residences.
Garrigues advised Logicor with a Barcelona office team formed by Real Estate partner Juan José Berdullas, senior associate Arturo Gutiérrez and associate Ghizlane Sammar.
EQT Exeter was advised by Hogan Lovells.
