Behemoth investor Blackstone agreed to buy Glendale-based PS Business Parks for $7.6 billion in an all-cash deal.
Affiliates of Blackstone Real Estate, based in New York, will buy the PSB real estate investment trust, which owns around 27 million square feet of industrial and office properties, business parks and apartments in California, Miami, Texas and Northern Virginia, Bloomberg reported.
The deal, at $187.50 a share, comes with around 2.2 million square feet of space in the Los Angeles market, including a 540,000-square-foot industrial park in Santa Fe Springs, a 400,000-square-foot industrial park in Cerritos and a 146,000-square-foot business park in Culver City.
The company owns 96 properties, with about 4,900 tenants coast to coast. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter. Of those, 53 properties are in California, according to its website.
Self-storage specialist Public Storage, which holds about a quarter of PS Business Parks, agreed to vote in favor of the deal.
The announcement comes three weeks after PS Business Parks named Stephen W. Wilson, formerly executive vice president of AvalonBay Communities, to be its new president and CEO;, and six months after the firm tapped Adeel Khan, formerly of Sawtelle-based Rexford Industrial Realty, to be its chief financial officer.
In the past year, Blackstone has spent billions on real estate acquisitions, with purchases of rental housing, industrial and office properties. Last week, it agreed to buy student-housing operator American Campus Communities Inc. for $12.8 billion.
A major part of the firm’s real estate operation is Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, known as BREIT. The non-traded real estate investment trust has become a juggernaut since launching in 2017. Prior to the student-housing deal , it agreed to buy apartment owner Preferred Apartment Communities Inc. for $5.8 billion. It also bought Home Partners of America, which rents single-family homes, in a $6 billion deal last year.
“We are excited to add PS Business Parks’ business park, office and industrial assets to our portfolio and look forward to leveraging our expertise to provide the best possible service and experience for PSB’s customers,” said David Levine, co-head of Americas acquisitions for Blackstone Real Estate.
[Bloomberg] – Dana Bartholomew
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