Exeter Property buys 19 US warehouses for $240m

Exeter Property Group has acquired a 19-building portfolio of class A core industrial distribution facilities located across the Midwest and Southeast for $240 million. 

According to Jones Lang LaSalle Capital Markets, who brokered the deal, the Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania-based real estate asset management firm purchased the six million square-foot portfolio from Houston-based real estate investment firm Pinchal & Company, who owned the buildings in partnership with American National Insurance Company and its subsidiary ANTAC.

Exeter chief executive Ward Fitzgerald told PERE that five of the properties are in Indiana and five are in Tennessee. Additionally, three are in North Carolina and three are in Kentucky. The remaining three warehouse properties are in Ohio, South Carolina and Illinois.

The portfolio is more than 98 percent occupied and is comprised of 27 tenants. The average remaining lease term is roughly six years. In addition to owning the properties, Exeter, which has seven regional offices, will manage all of them as well. 

“Our investors, who are amongst the largest and most sophisticated pension funds, endowments and insurance companies from around the world, look to us to create market diverse, high-product and tenant-quality portfolios that meet their value-add return requirements,” said Tim Weber, CFO and managing principal of Exeter in a statement. “This portfolio has significantly assisted us in meeting our partner’s objectives.”

“In conjunction with our other investments, this is a good fit in creating diversity across our portfolio,” Fitzgerald added. “It's a mix of larger and smaller warehouses. It's a good balance.” 

The firm is looking at these assets as medium-term investments – one to eight years – and will consider each warehouse individually. “We do not look at this portfolio as one investment, we look at it as 19,” said Fitzgerald. Exeter is targeting IRRs in the high-teens for its investors.