Blackstone to Buy Brookfield Self-Storage Firm for $1.2 Billion

(Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Group Inc. agreed to buy Simply Self Storage from a Brookfield Asset Management Inc. fund for about $1.2 billion, raising its bets on a sector that has stayed resilient during the pandemic.

Simply Self Storage, which owns 8 million square feet (740,000 square meters) of space across the U.S., will be purchased by Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc., according to a statement Monday. Blackstone already owns a $300 million portfolio of self-storage facilities, and the deal would make it the country’s third-largest owner of storage not listed on a stock exchange. The purchase is slated for completion by the end of the year.

Brookfield bought Simply Self Storage in 2016 through an opportunistic real estate fund and has since more than doubled the size of the firm. The self-storage market has held up better than the broader REIT sector throughout the pandemic, with economic changes tending to create demand for self-storage. Migration from urban hubs such as New York and San Francisco could boost demand for space across the U.S.

“Similar to logistics, self-storage is a resilient sector through economic cycles because of low tenant turnover, minimal maintenance costs and stable cash flows,” Frank Cohen, chief executive officer of Blackstone REIT, said in the statement.

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