- 31,000 apartments acquired in Northern and Western Germany
- Blackstone’s first investment in residential properties in Germany
- Transaction value of €1.39 billion
London/Frankfurt – Real Estate Funds advised by The Blackstone Group have today announced the purchase of the entire stock of residential properties belonging to WCM Beteiligungs- and Grundbesitz-Aktiengesellschaft, based in Frankfurt.
The portfolio consists of around 31,300 rental apartments, mainly situated in the Northern and Western parts of Germany. Around 9,500 are in the Kiel region, 11,400 in and around Bremen, 3,800 in Wuppertal, roughly 5,800 in and around Mönchengladbach and 500 in other regions. The average size of the apartments is approximately 63 square metres. The transaction value of the portfolio amounts to €1.39 billion.
This is Blackstone’s first residential property investment in the German market and its fourth property investment in Germany. Blackstone’s real estate funds last year acquired a portfolio of office properties from Deutsche Bank for approximately €1 billion and have made two hotel investments with the Nikko Hotel/Deutsch-Japanisches Center in Düsseldorf and the Marriot Hotel in Munich.
Chad Pike, Senior Managing Director and head of European real estate for Blackstone, commented: “The WCM residential portfolio has very stable cash flows and the assets have been the recipients of significant investments over the past several years. Blackstone will be focused on maintaining the long-term value of the apartments and will seek to optimize the financial structure of the business. This transaction gives Blackstone an excellent platform for further acquisition opportunities in the German residential property market.”
About The Blackstone Group:
Founded in 1985, The Blackstone Group is a global investment and advisory group with headquarters in New York and offices in London, Hamburg and Paris. Blackstone’s real estate group has raised five real estate funds with total committed capital of around $6 billion. The group has completed over 130 separate investments, representing more than 1,400 individual assets, in hotels, offices and other commercial properties, with a total transaction value of approximately $22 billion. Blackstone’s other businesses include private equity investing, for which it has raised over $14 billion including Blackstone Capital Partners IV, the largest private equity fund ever raised at $6.45 billion, corporate debt investing, marketable alternative asset investing, corporate advisory services, and restructuring and reorganization advisory.