A new industrial platform, Speed Bay Warehouse Solutions, has launched, with $350 million in commitments already secured. Black Creek Group founders and platform executives Evan Zucker and Jimmy Mulvihill have poured in $100 million, with $250 million coming from investment service BDT & MSD Partners.
The new platform is planning on focusing solely on multi-tenant, shallow bay assets. Already, Speed Bay has assembled a 2.7 million square foot portfolio in major markets including Tampa, Denver, Orlando, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth and Phoenix. This represents six out of its 16 markets that the new company is targeting, according to Zucker. Also, the platform has spent almost $500 million in the past 18 months on the assets, with Zucker noting that the actionable investment pipeline stretches to more than $1 billion now.
The warehouses in the portfolio span between 5,000 and 25,000 square feet. It's unclear what the other regions of interest are outside of the six noted.
According to a statement from the Black Creek founders, shallow bay remains "highly fragmented," with constrained supply. However, they don't overlook the importance that it has to local economies. Small bay provides key light manufacturing, storage and distribution and last-mile delivery. All serve as vital services near urban areas.
"Shallow bay properties serve a broad base of local and regional businesses that rely on functional, well-located space to operate effectively," Mulvihill said in a statement.
"These tenants are an important part of local economies, yet they have historically been served by a highly fragmented ownership base and inconsistent operating infrastructure. In many infill markets, new supply remains limited and lease durations are generally shorter, which we believe supports resilient fundamentals and can provide a measure of inflation protection. Taken together, these dynamics create an attractive opportunity to build a scaled platform focused on tenant service and disciplined value creation."
Under the new company, Zucker is serving as the chairman, with Mulvihill taking the vice chairman responsibility. Some other major positions include Lainie Minnick, chief financial officer; Rob Sistek, president and Matt Stephenson, chief operating officer. The entire leadership team brings its decades of experience to the table, where they have combined to develop or purchase more than 325 million square feet of industrial product, with this number including 50 million square feet of shallow bay.
The announcement comes on the same day that Kayne Anderson and BKM Capital Partners teamed up to make the largest light industrial purchase since 2022, paying $1.81 billion for an 8.5 million square foot portfolio. Kayne said that the sector hosts intriguing fundamentals and reiterated the "highly fragmented" notion that was highlighted by the Black Creek founders.
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