Warburg Pincus Buys Pair of Greater Tokyo Warehouses to Expand Japan Portfolio

Warburg Pincus continues to expand its real estate holdings in Asia’s second largest economy with the US private equity giant announcing on Wednesday that it has committed to acquiring a pair of Greater Tokyo warehouses for approximately $240 million.

The New York-based firm is picking up I Missions Park Inzai and Logitres Sano from Mitsui Fudosan Logistics REIT, which had announced the sale of the properties late last month, with Warburg Pincus describing the deal in a statement as an extension of its global pursuit of strategies benefiting from online shopping and city-driven economies.

“E-commerce expansion and rapid urbanization continue to drive strong demand for modern logistics facilities in Japan,” said Takashi Murata, a managing director with the firm who is co-head of Asia real estate and head of Japan. He added that, “Coupled with a structural imbalance in certain submarkets where demand significantly exceeds supply, we have strong conviction in the sector’s long-term potential.”

The proposed purchase would add nearly 118,000 square metres (1.27 million square feet) of fully leased warehouse space to Warburg Pincus’s portfolio in Japan, and follows other recent North Asian logistics deals by its portfolio companies.

Greater Tokyo Portfolio

I Missions Park is a five-storey, purpose-built logistics facility with 110,516 square metres of gross floor area. Having earned a four-star rating under Japan’s DBJ Green Building regime for sustainable buildings, the 2018-vintage property is fully leased to a major e-commerce tenant, according to the statement.

Located 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of central Tokyo in Chiba prefecture, the facility is connected to National Route 16 and the Chiba Kita interchange on the Higashi Kanto Expressway and serves as a transfer hub for Narita airport air cargo.

North of Tokyo in Tochigi prefecture, Logitres Sano is a two-storey logistics facility completed in 2023 with 7,144 square metres of gross floor area leased to a single tenant. Warburg Pincus is acquiring the pair of warehouses through a bridge financing structure, it said.

“These acquisitions align with our strategy to deepen our exposure to high-quality logistics assets in core Japanese markets, where tenant demand remains robust,” Murata said. “IMP Inzai and Logitres Sano offer a compelling combination of income stability and value creation opportunities, supported by strong tenancy, full occupancy, and strategic connectivity.”

Mitsui Fudosan Logistics Park is selling the two properties just over half a year after having completed its merger with Itochu Group-sponsored Advance Logistics Investment Corporation to create Japan’s third-biggest industrial REIT by asset size, after Nippon Prologis REIT and GLP J-REIT.

Logistics Convictions

When completed, the logistics deal will be Warburg Pincus’s third major Japanese acquisition this year and its first significant direct investment in the country’s logistics sector.

In early April the firm announced its purchase on behalf of the Warburg Pincus Asia Real Estate Fund of the Tokyo Beta portfolio, a set of shared-living properties under the Japanese capital’s “share house” sector with more than 16,000 rooms.

That deal was announced within the same week in which the fund manager said it had acquired an office building in Tokyo’s Shinagawa ward under its GRC life sciences joint venture with Japanese investment firm Eastgate.

To the northwest, Warburg Pincus has been betting on logistics in Korea, with its portfolio company Qube Logistics announcing late last month that it had sold a pair of warehouses outside of Seoul to a Blackstone fund.

In March, a Warburg Pincus joint venture with Seoul-based Wide Creek Asset Management picked up an 82,000 square metre site in the Gyeonggi provincial city of Anseong, south of Seoul, with plans to develop a five-storey dry warehouse with a net leasable area of 100,000 square metres.