Investors flip beer warehouse to double their money in six months

Santa Fe Springs cold storage facility sells for $85M

From left: Thor Equities' Joseph Sitt, Staley Point Capital Kevin Staley and Bain Capital’s Andrew Terris with 12065 Pike Street (Thor, Staley Point, Bain Capital, Google Maps)
From left: Thor Equities' Joseph Sitt, Staley Point Capital Kevin Staley and Bain Capital’s Andrew Terris with 12065 Pike Street (Thor, Staley Point, Bain Capital, Google Maps)

UPDATED, July 14, 2022, 10:03 a.m.: In six months, Staley Point Capital and Bain Capital have flipped a cold storage warehouse in Santa Fe Springs for double their money, benefiting from the facility’s high-quality tenant, Anheuser-Busch.

The firms sold a 159,000-square-foot warehouse at 12065 Pike Street for $85 million, after buying it for $35 million in January – a gain of 143 percent. Thor Equities, which bought the property with Danish pension fund PFA, announced the deal on July 12.

Even before Staley and Bain bought the warehouse, the property was fully leased to Anheuser-Busch, which uses it for distribution and cold storage. The warehouse has 16 dock doors, 25-foot clear heights, a large trucking court and land for trailer parking.

The deal suggests the little value traditional comps have anymore in industrial real estate. Properties are priced individually, based on location, acreage, warehouse quality and whether trucks can be kept onsite.

In the case of 12065 Pike Street, the warehouse has a strategic location at the southern edge of L.A. County, near the 5 and 605 freeways, making it an ideal spot for distribution.

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“Given the proximity to the largest port in the U.S. and accessibility to a large population, the location is ideal for cold storage,” Thor Equities’ Chairman Joseph Sitt said in a statement.

Founded in 2019, Staley Point has been an active investor in L.A. industrial real estate, mostly spending between $20 million and $40 million on assets in the South Bay and the San Fernando Valley. This is the firm’s first known sale of an industrial property since it was formed.

Thor, on the other hand, has been buying and developing industrial properties in the U.S. and Europe with the Danish pension fund since 2016. PFA committed to spending nearly $166 million on U.S. logistics through a fund with Thor in 2021.

Its first deal as part of this commitment was buying a warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn, fully leased to Amazon for more than $68 million, according to news reports.