APG Asset Management, the in-house manager of Dutch pension fund ABP, Heerlen, Netherlands, and another undisclosed global institutional investor have entered into a new joint venture with a logistics real estate China-focused platform run by ESR.
The investors made a joint initial equity commitment of $1 billion to the ESR China Development Platform.
APG's share in the joint venture is 40%, APG spokesman confirmed. APG has had an existing joint venture with ESR focused on logistics in China since 2014. But the spokesman said in an email that the previous commitment has already been "fully utilized."
The platform targets up to $4 billion worth of investments as global e-commerce sales are expected to require additional logistics space as they grow to $3.9 trillion by 2025.
"We believe that building new assets designed to meet environmental standards and ever-changing occupier demand is one of the better ways to create a resilient portfolio for long-term performance," Graeme Torre, head of real estate Asia-Pacific at APG, said in a news release. "To do this, it is essential to have development partners that offer first-class sourcing and execution capabilities, which is why we have embarked on our second China-focused platform with ESR," he added.
ABP has €495.3 billion ($582.5 billion) in assets.