Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, Inc. (BREIT) said on Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Simply Self Storage from a Brookfield Asset Management real estate fund for approximately $1.2 billion.
The company is one of the top five private owners of self storage and operates a portfolio totaling eight million square feet across the U.S, said in the statement.
BREIT currently owns a $300 million portfolio of self storage facilities, and following this acquisition, BREIT will be the third largest non-listed owner of storage in the U.S.
“This transaction is a complementary addition to BREIT’s high-quality portfolio of income-generating real estate, which is heavily weighted towards logistics and multifamily primarily in growth markets. Simply Self Storage is a best-in-class company with significant potential for growth through future acquisitions in a highly fragmented sector, and similar to logistics, self-storage is a resilient sector through economic cycles because of low tenant turnover, minimal maintenance costs and stable cash flows. We look forward to continuing to acquire high quality assets on behalf of our BREIT investors,” said Frank Cohen, Chairman and CEO of BREIT.
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This transaction is expected to close prior to the end of 2020, subject to certain customary closing conditions.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is serving as legal advisor to BREIT, and BofA Securities and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. are serving as financial advisors to BREIT. RBC Capital Markets LLC, Newmark Group Inc., and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP advised Brookfield.
