BENGALURU (REUTERS) – Hong Kong-based ESR Cayman will buy the entire share capital of real estate fund manager ARA Asset Management for US$5.2 billion (S$7 billion), the companies said on Wednesday, creating Asia Pacific’s biggest real asset fund manager.
Following the deal, the combined entity will have US$129 billion of assets under management, according to the companies, of which US$50 billion will focus on real estate, such as data centres.
Through the acquisition of ARA, and its unit Logos, logistics real estate manager ESR plans to focus on the e-commerce sector.
Citigroup Global Markets Singapore was the lead financial adviser for ARA, while Morgan Stanley Asia was the financial adviser for ESR.
In April this year, ESR clinched another deal, in partnership with Singapore’s GIC, to buy some Australian assets from Blackstone Group for A$3.8 billion ($2.8 billion).
