Blackstone Acquires $2B Industrial Portfolio in France

Blackstone’s message for its overseas industrial ambitions? Viva la France!

The alternative asset manager agreed to buy a portfolio of warehouses in the European country for $2.3 billion, Bloomberg reported. Proudreed, a major private logistics firm in France, is selling the assets.

The portfolio includes urban warehouses in major cities and land ripe for development. All told, the sites span nearly 25 million square feet.

Blackstone declined to comment, while Proudreed did not return a request for comment from the publication. Green Street News was first to report the transaction.

Blackstone has been investing heavily in the European industrial market for years, seeking to take advantage of the growth in e-commerce and subsequent rise of warehouse demand and rents. More than half of the company’s assets in Europe are considered industrial.

Blackstone has been on a spending spree in France, specifically, since 2023, according to Business Immo. Acquisitions have included the Mandarin Oriental boutiques for $215 million and the acquisition of an 80 percent stake in a European logistics portfolio owned by Burstone, which included 10 assets in France.

In recent weeks, Blackstone acquired the Centre d’Affaires building in Paris’ Trocadero district from German investor Union Investments for $819 million, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Blackstone’s recent noteworthy activity in the United States industrial market has been of the selling sort.

In June, Blackstone sold three Miami-Dade warehouses for $90.2 million to East Capital Partners, continuing a trend of selling off South Florida industrial properties. At that point, Blackstone and its subsidiary, Link Logistics, unloaded 34 industrial properties in the region for nearly $1 billion since November.

A month earlier, Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital teamed up with Oliver Street Capital to purchase 11 light industrial buildings in New Jersey from Blackstone for $208 million. The properties were all Class B warehouses totaling 784,000 square feet and combined were 88 percent leased.

— Holden Walter-Warner