Dubai: Aldar has made its second big investment push in recent times into Europe, this time with a Dh407 million ($111 million) funding in logistics and storage assets through an alliance with heavyweight fund manager Carlyle.
This sees the UAE mega-developer Aldar make a commitment in the Carlyle Europe Realty platform, which is the latter's pan-European real estate vehicle. There will also be a majority stake in a co-investment platform, which includes an income-producing portfolio of 14 warehouses located at logistics hubs in the UK.
This portfolio, which is managed by Carlyle, now has 900,000 square fet of gross leasable area (GLA) and is fully occupied with 'substantial reversion potential'. Aldar also invested alongside Carlyle and others into a portfolio of self-storage facilities and development sites in Western Europe.
"Aldar is pursuing a programmatic, themed investment strategy in Europe, building key relationships that will support our growth in the coming years," said Talal Al Dhiyebi, Group CEO.
"Within the logistics and self-storage investments, Aldar will leverage its development and asset management expertise to help shape the portfolios," the Abu Dhabi developer said in a statement. "And the partnership model paves the way for Aldar to gain further exposure to the segment alongside Carlyle."
In December, Aldar had announced a push into the UK real estate market, by buying the developer London Square. This was Aldar’s first outside the MENA region.
We are gaining quality access to a real estate segment that offers high yield and steady capital growth, while also gaining the opportunity to bring our expertise to bear. These newly acquired assets will anchor our logistics business as we continue to explore opportunities to build further scale
More to do in Europe
Aldar had also recently announced capital commitments in Europe's commercial real estate private credit alongside Ares and Mubadala. In the UAE, the company confirmed it will add a further Dh1 billion to expand its logistics portfolio across Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
"These investments, capital commitments and acquisitions are part of a broader expansion strategy focused on gaining exposure to high-growth real estate sectors," Aldar said in a statement. And also 'expanding internationally into mature markets with the aim to accelerate growth while diversifying revenue streams, geographic presence and adding significant scale to Aldar’s platform'.
