Blackstone In Talks To Sell Japan Properties to Anbang
22 November 2016 - 3:00AM
Dow Jones News
HONG KONG—Blackstone Group LP is in discussions to sell a
roughly $2.3 billion portfolio of Japanese properties to China's
Anbang Insurance Group Co., according to people familiar with the
situation.
The deal would be the latest sale of global real-estate assets
by the U.S. private-equity giant to Chinese companies eager to buy
property assets abroad. In October, Blackstone agreed to sell a 25%
stake in Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. to Chinese conglomerate HNA
Group for $6.5 billion. Chinese insurer Anbang earlier this year
bought the bulk of the assets that made up Strategic Hotels &
Resorts Inc. for around $5.5 billion from Blackstone, and the U.S.
firm guided Hilton's sale of New York's marquee Waldorf Astoria to
Anbang for a record-breaking $1.95 billion in 2014.
The discussions between Anbang and Blackstone for the Japan
property portfolio were earlier reported by Reuters.
During the past three years, as Chinese companies have plowed
increasing amounts of money into assets abroad, New York-based
Blackstone or its portfolio companies have sold at least $16
billion in hotels, office buildings and other overseas real-estate
assets to Chinese buyers, not including the Japan deal under
discussions, according to Dealogic and research by The Wall Street
Journal.
Hotels and other property assets have been in the crosshairs of
Chinese companies during their record-breaking overseas acquisition
spree this year. That rush is in part propelled by expectations
that the yuan will continue to weaken, meaning the value and
revenue of assets abroad would appreciate in yuan terms.
Chinese buyers are particularly eager to snatch up property
assets because they tend to require less hands-on management than
industrial firms and are less politically sensitive.
Blackstone, which calls itself the world's biggest
private-equity real-estate firm, with $102 billion in property
assets, is in a prime position to cut deals. It has also been
willing to deal with Chinese buyers, like Anbang, whose relative
inexperience with Western deal-making and opaque ownership
structure have made some other U.S. sellers uneasy.
Write to Rick Carew at rick.carew@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 21, 2016 10:45 ET (15:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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