The acquisition of MGPA has resulted in the creation of a combined $23.5 billion global real estate investment platform, which BlackRock says serves a client base of around 700 investors.
The acquisition, which was first flagged in May this year, “significantly extends BlackRock’s real estate debt and equity investment capabilities”, the group stated.
The combined platform consists of over 400 on-the-ground real estate professionals in 18 offices across 13 countries. BlackRock said it will provide access to 75 per cent of the investable commercial real estate universe across the world’s top six markets.
“We are committed to building out our regional alternative investment capabilities to meet the growing demand from our clients for real estate expertise,” said Mark McCombe, BlackRock’s chairman, Asia Pacific.
“Bringing on board the MGPA team with such a real estate expertise is an important milestone as we continue to broaden our product set and accelerate our growth in Asia Pacific.”
BlackRock said MGPA’s offerings are complementary to BlackRock’s existing real estate investment solutions, with “virtually no overlap of products”.
BlackRock said the move may accelerate the growth of the combined firm by pairing MGPA’s business with BlackRock’s distribution capabilities for institutional and retail clients.
Former group chief executive of MGPA, Simon Treacy, is now global chief investment officer for BlackRock Real Estate. He said the combination with BlackRock will provide many benefits for clients and staff.
“Our combined investment teams and staff provide on-the-ground market coverage that will allow us to expand our activities across the real estate spectrum at a time when allocations to property as both a core allocation and an alternative investment are growing,” he said.
BlackRock said the financial impact of the transaction is not material to BlackRock earnings per share, and terms of the deal were not disclosed.
