Dutch Fund Invests $60M in Blackstone’s BioMed Recap

Bouwinvest Real Estate Investors has invested $60 million in life science office buildings across the United States on behalf of its North America mandate. 

Bouwinvest, Dutch institutional real estate manager, participated in Blackstone’s recapitalization of BioMed Realty, bringing it closer to its goal of growing its North American portfolio to $2 billion by 2022. It is currently at $1.65 billion.

BioMed’s assets are primarily located in the top-tier life science clusters in Boston, San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle.

“This exceptional investment opportunity meets our real value for life objectives by creating value in both financial and social terms. Our investment not only provides an attractive long-term return for Dutch pensioners, but also helps facilitate important medical research,” Gijs Plantinga, Bouwinvest Director North American Investments, said in a prepared statement.

Interest in life sciences was growing before 2020. But the pandemic has accelerated investment into the space. With the search for a vaccine and more focus on health and wellness, life science companies are expanding with significant investment from not only venture capital but institutional capital as well. 

Another appeal is that the life sciences sector has traditionally weathered economic challenges well, Dawn Saunders, a partner at law firm Crosbie Gliner Schiffman Southard & Swanson LLP, told GlobeSt.com in the earlier interview. “The tech crash in the early 2000s and the Great Recession are examples. Life science companies also tend to invest heavily in their premises and stay for a long term, and rents are higher than other product types.”

Another recent example is IQHQ, a life sciences real estate development company, which just completed a second $1.7 billion equity raise from new and existing strategic partners. IQHQ’s development pipeline includes an anticipated 4.4 million square feet of life science projects in Boston, San Francisco and San Diego.