Bain, 11North Close $1.6B Fund for Grocery-Anchored Retail

Bain Capital Real Estate and 11North Partners are ready to pounce on the retail market with more than $1 billion in their collective coffers.

A joint venture of the two firms raised $1.6 billion to invest in their open-air retail operating platform, the companies announced. The fundraise, anchored by two global institutional investors who were not disclosed, pushed the platform past $2 billion of equity to invest.

“The structure of our platform gives us the flexibility to pursue single assets, large portfolios or company-level opportunities,” 11North founder Brian Harper said in a statement, pointing the platform towards “generational grocery-anchored real estate.”

The two firms launched their platform last April. They’ve made several moves since then, including acquiring a 10-asset portfolio of Publix-anchored retail centers in Florida and South Carolina for $395 million, as well as a three-asset retail center acquisition in Oklahoma City for $212 million.

Bain Capital, founded in 1984, has roughly $205 billion of assets under management. Ryan Cotton leads the company’s real estate division.

Last week, Bain Capital and Blue Vista sold Vue 53, a 403-bed student housing apartment building with ground-floor retail in Chicago, to New Jersey-based Antheus Capital for $57.6 million.

Harper founded 11North last year after Kimco Realty’s acquisition of RPT Realty, where he was chief executive officer. 11North staff members are formerly of RPT; Bain Capital has an ownership stake in 11North.

Bain and 11North aren’t the only players drawn to open-air or grocery-anchored retail properties.

Just last week, Blackstone announced a $2.3 billion deal to take Hawaii-based Alexander & Baldwin private. The firm is the largest owner of grocery-anchored shopping centers in the state, boasting a portfolio that includes 21 retail centers.

Earlier this year, Blackstone completed its $4 billion acquisition of an open-air retail real estate investment trust, Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. The deal saw the privatization of a company with a West Coast portfolio spanning 93 shopping centers and more than 10 million square feet.