GLP Reaches $1.3B First Closing of Third European Core Logistics Fund

GLP on Wednesday announced the €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) first closing of its Europe Income Partners III fund, a mere 14 months after achieving the final closing of the previous vehicle in the core logistics series targeting the continent.

The warehouse giant is aiming for more than €1.5 billion in total equity commitments to GLP EIP III and over €3 billion in assets under management once the strategy is fully deployed, Singapore-based GLP said in a release.

The company gave no specifics about its limited partners in GLP EIP III, saying only that the first closing had been led mostly by existing GLP investors and that the fund had welcomed the first Japanese investors into the Europe series.

“Our Europe business continues to demonstrate continued momentum and strong demand and GLP EIP III seeks to enable GLP and its capital partners to capture the market opportunity,” said Ralf Wessel, managing director of fund management at GLP. “We expect to increase the fund size beyond its initial target on the back of strong investor demand and a robust acquisition pipeline.”

Income Generators

GLP EIP III is seeded with a portfolio of 34 logistics assets spanning 1.5 million square metres (16 million square feet) of space in locations across Europe.

The seed portfolio includes a high proportion of newly built assets with an average age of 2.5 years and sourced mainly via off-market transactions, said GLP, which has more than $120 billion in assets under management in real estate and private equity.

The fund’s immediate predecessor, the 2020-vintage GLP EIP II, reached a €1.6 billion final closing in January of last year, with GLP estimating that the fund could reach €3.2 billion in assets under management.

GLP EIP II derives its cash flow from a set of 25 distribution centres across Europe. The portfolio measures 1.9 million square metres and was 97 percent occupied as of September 2020, according to a company announcement at the time.

All in the Family

GLP EIP III is the Singapore-based firm’s fifth European investment vehicle, taking into account the first fund in the core series and the opportunistic GLP Europe Development Partners I — both of which closed in August 2018 and raised a total of $4 billion — as well as the 2018-vintage GLP Continental Europe Development Partners I.

GLP CDP I got a boost last June when the fund manager said it was upsizing the European logistics development venture with its pair of Canadian partners, aiming to boost assets under management to €4 billion from the original target of €2 billion.

The logistics giant announced that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and British Columbia pension fund manager QuadReal Property Group had agreed to raise the investment capacity of GLP CDP I, which was originally set up to develop modern logistics assets in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

The upsize transformed the fund into a pan-European vehicle by strategically expanding in the UK and Central and Eastern Europe via the acquisition of landbank and select high-quality development opportunities, GLP said at the time.