QIA JV buys LA office from Hines for $225m

Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has added a stake in a fifth Los Angeles office building to its US real estate holdings, the sovereign wealth fund said last week.

QIA again partnered with real estate investment trust Douglas Emmett and other unnamed institutional investors to buy the 19-story office building at 12100 Wilshire Boulevard for $225 million from real estate investment management firm Hines. The west Los Angeles building is 77 percent occupied, according to the firms’ joint statement. Hines bought the property in November 2007 for $225 million from Deutsche Asset Management, according to real estate data provider Real Capital Analytics (RCA).

Douglas Emmett is managing the joint venture and will hold a 20 percent to 30 percent equity stake in the property, according to Thursday’s statement. QIA’s and the other investors’ stakes in the building have not been disclosed.

In March, Douglas Emmett and QIA teamed up to buy four class A office buildings in Los Angeles from Blackstone for $1.3 billion, PERE previously reported. QIA began investing in US real estate with the acquisition of four buildings in New York City in 2008, according to RCA. Douglas Emmett also owns a 20 percent to 30 percent equity stake in that portfolio.

Last year, the Qatari sovereign wealth fund said it would invest $35 billion in North America across multiple asset classes over five years, although it did not provide any specifics for real estate. To assist with this expansion, QIA opened a New York office in September. Over the past year, Qatar led Middle East countries sending capital to US real estate, purchasing 10 properties for a total of $5.4 billion, not including its latest Los Angeles acquisition, according to RCA.

Most of that capital was deployed in an October deal in New York City, when QIA bought a 44 percent stake in Brookfield Property Partners’ development on Manhattan’s far west side. The project, called Manhattan West, is a mixed-use development with five buildings, including office towers and luxury residential units. Manhattan West, valued at $8.6 billion, is slated for completion in 2019.