KKR, a leading global investment firm, today announces that Mirastar, KKR Real Estate’s industrial and logistics platform in Europe, has acquired four UK logistics assets, located in Harlow, for £160m from TPG, a leading global alternative asset management firm, and Stoford.
The four newly-built Grade A freehold assets, totaling 370,000 square feet, are located in Harlow, Greater London, and let to low-risk covenants. The assets have strong ESG performance and are recognised with BREEAM “Very Good” ratings across all four buildings. The UK continues to see sustained rental growth in the logistics sector with ongoing undersupply and strong occupier demand, and the Harlow portfolio is well-situated, capable of being used for national distribution as well as last mile distribution within Greater London.
The transaction is KKR’s second from its pan-European Core+ Real Estate strategy, following the acquisition of four freehold logistics assets totaling 45,000 square meters in the Netherlands in January. KKR’s Core+ strategy targets high quality, substantially stabilized assets with long-term value growth potential. KKR is an active investor in logistics real estate across Europe and as of Q4 2021, KKR Real Estate owns over 1.6 million square metres of logistics assets across Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, and the Netherlands.
Ian Williamson, Managing Director and Head of Core+ Real Estate in Europe at KKR, said: “We’re delighted to announce our first UK acquisition for KKR’s Core+ strategy for Real Estate. High-quality logistics assets are one of the main investment themes for our Core+ strategy in Europe and this marks the second successful transaction in just three months since the platform was launched last year. The combination of protection on the downside and optionality on the upside is compelling.”
TPG is selling the assets out of the TPG Real Estate platform, which invests across multiple strategies including private equity, core plus, and commercial debt and has an AUM of $13 billion. Since its inception in 2009, TPG Real Estate’s dedicated opportunistic real estate equity investment platform, TPG Real Estate Partners (TREP), has built a differentiated investment portfolio comprised primarily of real estate-rich platforms and portfolios located in the United States and Europe, with $6.1 billion of assets under management.