Colony Capital’s Lew Friedland and Thomas J. Barrack Jr.
Less than a month after unloading $136 million worth of assets, Colony Capital said it is buying a massive $1.2-billion portfolio of industrial properties spread across the country.
The deal, which includes 54 buildings totaling about 11.9 million square feet, will expand the firm’s footprint by 25 percent in square footage terms, said Lew Friedland, managing director at Colony Capital.
The properties are in 10 markets, including Northern and Southern California, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
The investment company, which is based in Downtown Los Angeles and run by billionaire founder Thomas Barrack Jr., a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, now manages $43 billion of assets.
Colony Capital did not disclose the seller. Records for one location show it belonged to Dermody Properties – a logistics and industrial firm based in Nevada with properties listed for sale throughout the country.
Forty-eight of the buildings are light industrial properties with about 7.7 million square feet of space. The buildings average 160,000 square feet in size, and are 73-percent leased.
The remaining six buildings are bulk industrial. They represent 4.2 million square feet of space, with an average of 700,000 square feet per building.
In February, the firm traded a 2.3-million-square-foot industrial portfolio worth $136 million to Nuveen Real Estate. Colony Capital also runs the fund that manages Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch estate, which recently returned to the market with a $31-million price cut.
The firm was drew media attention in February after Barrack, the CEO, seemingly downplayed the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia.