Mapletree Buys Blackstone’s Spanish Sheds as Part of $329M European Acquisition

Singapore’s Mapletree Investments has added 11 warehouses to its European logistics holdings, with help from its friends at Blackstone.

The Temasek Holdings-owned investment manager announced on Monday that it had purchased 10 warehouses in Spain and its first logistics asset in the United Kingdom for €315.1 million ($328.7 million), with a report by Madrid publication Expansion citing sources indicating Blackstone as seller of the Iberian properties.

The new acquisition will serve as seed assets for Mapletree’s second European logistics fund, following its Pan-US-European Logistics Fund, which closed on $1.8 billion in equity in April 2020.

“Logistics remains a highly attractive sector that has consistently enjoyed strong demand from occupiers as well as investors,” said Ralph van der Beek, CEO of Mapletree commercial and logistics for Europe. “E-commerce continues to thrive and companies are making efforts to secure and expand their supply chains.”

Seeking Spanish Sheds

Mapletree identified its new Spanish portfolio as including assets in Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid, with the Expansion account also indicating properties in Tarragona and Girona as well as in Alicante. Mapletree paid €215 million for the Spanish assets, according to the media account.

The Iberian properties, which have an average age of 20 years, are largely leased to third-party logistics providers, including US logistics firm XPO and local cold chain provider Salvesen Logistica, according to Expansion.

Through its Mileway logistics fund, Blackstone has been expanding its Spanish holdings, including buying a set of four assets in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Guipuzcoa in 2020, according to local media accounts. More recently the firm has been trimming its Spanish shed portfolio, with Blackstone Property Partners Europe Holdings last year selling two logistics assets in Spain and Germany for €81 million.

Mapletree’s new UK asset is located in Derby Commercial Park in the East Midlands, with the total portfolio spanning 256,000 square metres (2.76 million square feet) of net lettable area.

The 11 newly acquired European logistics properties will serve as the initial holdings for Mapletree’s second European logistics-focused fund, which the firm says it plans to launch once the seed portfolio reaches sufficient scale.

European Routes

Mapletree entered the European logistics market in 2018 and now owns 80 assets across eight countries following the acquisition announced this week.

In its most recent annual report, Mapletree Europe said the downturn in the continent’s logistics market offered opportunities for the firm to expand its asset footprint in the region.

Other investors may be adopting a similar thesis, with Swedish private equity firm EQT announcing a €203 million acquisition of 12 logistics assets in northern Italy on the same day that Mapletree announced its latest European buy.

JLL said in a November 2024 report that investment in European logistics has started to pick up, with transactions in the third quarter rising by 28 percent quarter-on-quarter to €9.51 billion.

The European acquisitions align with Mapletree’s growing focus on what is now its largest asset class, with warehouses accounting for 41 percent of the firm’s owned and managed properties as of the end of March 2024. That figure was up from 39 percent at the same point a year earlier, according to Mapletree’s annual report.

Last month, the Singaporean investment firm spent an undisclosed amount to acquire a 22.5 acre (9.1 hectare) plot in New Jersey with plans to develop a 250,000 square foot logistics facility. That US deal came after Mapletree closed its second Japan Logistics Development Fund in May of last year, with that vehicle expected to achieve over JPY 110 billion ($710 million) in assets under management.