Realty Income Corp., Singapore's GIC Team Up To Grow REIT's Portfolio
Net lease REIT Realty Income Corp. has teamed up with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund to fuel its next phase of growth.
GIC and Realty Income started a joint venture focused on build-to-suit logistics development that has more than $1.5B in combined capital commitments from the two firms, they jointly announced Monday. Singapore’s investment fund is also becoming a cornerstone investor in Realty Income’s U.S. Core Plus Fund.
The partnership is expected to be long term and programmatic, with a focus on delivering build-to-suit logistics properties to investment-grade tenants. To kick off the deal, San Diego-based Realty Income is partnering with GIC to finance the construction of two preleased industrial properties in Mexico and has agreed to purchase the properties for roughly $200M once they’re built.
“Our long-term capital, paired with Realty Income's expertise and market access will allow us to unlock significant value through investments in mission critical, state-of-the-art build-to-suit logistics assets,” GIC Chief Investment Officer of Real Estate Goh Chin Kiong said in a statement.
The GIC partnership will accelerate Realty Income’s global expansion and unlock incremental growth opportunities at a better basis than the REIT would have been able to independently achieve, Realty Income CEO Sumit Roy said in a statement.
The Mexican development project includes the construction of a portfolio of logistics assets in Mexico City and Guadalajara that have been preleased for long terms to global Fortune 100 companies.
GIC and Realty Income will jointly finance construction, which will be handled by Hines, GIC’s development partner. Once completed, their acquisition will mark Realty Income's entry to the Mexican market.
Realty Income is a net lease giant, with more than 15,500 properties in all 50 U.S. states and in eight European countries. The dividend-focused stock was trading up more than 1% early Monday at just under $59 per share. Shares have traded between $50 and $73 over the past five years, and the stock is up 12% from a year ago.
The REIT reported $316M in profits for the third quarter, compared to $262M during the same period a year earlier. It increased its dividend for the 112th consecutive quarter in September to 5.5%.
GIC, which has roughly $936B in assets under management, has about half of its investments in the United States, with 51% of its global investments in equities and 23% in real assets
It is joint owner with The Related Cos. and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority of the Deutsche Bank Center in Manhattan, which secured a $1.1B CMBS refinancing deal in October.
A month earlier, GIC was reportedly circling an 11-figure deal to sell manufactured homes landlord Yes Communities to Canadian investment giant Brookfield, but that transaction hasn’t come to fruition.
