Blackstone Closes $1.2B Simply Self Storage Deal
With this acquisition, BREIT becomes the third largest non-listed owner of storage in the US.
Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust has completed its previously announced acquisition of Simply Self Storage from a Brookfield Asset Management real estate fund for approximately $1.2 billion. Simply Self Storage’s portfolio comprises eight million square feet across the US, making BREIT the third largest non-listed owner of storage in the country.
The self-storage sector is dominated by a handful of public REITs and numerous smaller companies. Simply Storage is among the largest of private operators. The opportunity to acquire a $1 billion-plus storage portfolio, including a brand and a team, is incredibly rare, Tyler Henritze, head of acquisitions in the Americas for Blackstone’s real-estate group told the Wall Street Journal when the deal was first announced.
The acquisition also adds some diversity to BREIT’s income-generating real estate, which is heavily weighted towards logistics and multifamily assets.
Brookfield acquired Simply Self Storage in 2016 in one of its opportunistic real estate funds. Since that time, Brookfield more than doubled the size of the company.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal advisor to BREIT, and BofA Securities and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. served as financial advisors to BREIT. RBC Capital Markets LLC, Newmark Group Inc., and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP advised Brookfield.