Private equity group Blackstone Group has made its first acquisition in Singapore, buying the StarHub Green project from Germany's SEB Asset Management for S$215 million ($173 million).
Blackstone bought the 400,000-square-foot business park as part of an opportunity real estate fund, according to a source familiar with the deal. SEB and Blackstone agreed to the terms of the deal last week, the source said.
SEB, which held the business park in an open-ended property fund, was facing redemptions and opted to liquidate the asset, the source said. Singaporean mobile phone and television operator StarHub, majority-owned by sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, is the anchor tenant in the building.
The transaction comes as European financial institutions seek to raise capital through asset sales, with French banks such as BNP Paribas, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole all offloading portfolios of loans in a bid to deleverage.
SEB Asset Management is based in Germany and is a unit of Stockholm-based bank Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken. The company had been trying to sell the property for some time, the source said.
Blackstone, one of the world's largest private equity and alternative-investment companies, has about $38 billion in real estate assets. It recently established an office in Singapore that is expected to house a private-equity real estate team. The company is among a number of global players such as KKR & Co. LP that are expanding in Southeast Asia and building teams in Singapore.
Blackstone and SEB officials declined to comment on the deal when contacted on Monday.
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