Macquarie enters Brazil industrial RE market

The firm is working with RB Capital to form an urban, Class A property-focused real estate platform.

Macquarie Capital is betting on Brazilian industrial real estate through a new venture announced Tuesday.

The Sydney-based firm is teaming up with RB Capital, a São Paulo-based alternatives investment manager that is majority-owned by Japanese financial services firm Orix, for the unnamed venture. The partners plan to invest in Class A industrial real estate first in São Paulo, Rio de Janiero and other cities. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The platform is Macquarie Capital Real Estate's entrance into the Brazilian real estate market, a source with knowledge of the venture said. The groups plan to capitalize the venture with several hundred million dollars, with the goal of reaching $1-2 billion of assets under management within five years.

“We are seeing increasing global investor interest in Brazil and in particular industrial real estate investment,” Chris Green, Macquarie Capital’s global head of real estate, said in Tuesday’s statement.

Leading the venture is Thomaz Camargo, who most recently co-founded RED, a Brazilian real estate industrial developer and asset manager. He previously worked with Equity International’s Brazilian industrial real estate platform, Hines’s Brazil office and CBRE.

“Given the ongoing fiscal and other reforms, the Brazilian economy is now poised for sustainable economic growth which will drive e-commerce demand in similar ways to what is occurring globally, and that this will in turn drive demand for modern industrial logistics facilities,” said Marcelo Michalua, RB Capital’s chief executive. “Most of the industrial real estate in Brazil is operator-owned as opposed to investor-owned and this also provides opportunities for sale-leasebacks and other capital solutions for large owners and tenants.”

RB Capital has 2.6 billion reais ($780 million; €700 million) in assets under management, including 500 million reais in industrial real estate.

Macquarie had $369 billion of AUM as of March 31.