New Jersey commits $500m to Blackstone’s debut Asia real estate fund

The fund came up for consideration at the New Jersey State Investment Council meeting last week, as part of alternative investments commitments totaling $900 million.

Blackstone Real Estate Partners Asia is expected to focus on China, India, Australia and Japan. While this is the firm's first regional fund, in 2010 it assumed responsibility for $2 billion worth of regional property assets when it replaced Bank of America Merrill Lynch as the GP for the Merrill Lynch Asian Real Estate Opportunity Fund.

Blackstone also announced a final close of $13.3 billion for its seventh global real estate fund, the largest opportunistic real estate vehicle ever raised, last October. China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reportedly committed $500 million to the fund.

The fundraise was followed by reports that Blackstone had secured the largest ever commercial real estate deal in India, acquiring a 50% stake in a portfolio of three business parks for $200 million. The firm has also agreed to purchase Shanghai's Huamin Imperial Building, an office tower valued at approximately RMB7 billion ($1.12 billion).

New Jersey Division of Investment had $72.8 billion under management as of year-end 2012. Of this, 4.9% was in real estate and 7.3% was in buyouts and venture capital, with a further 1.1% allocated to debt-related private equity.

During the 2012 fiscal year, the pension fund committed $1.9 billion to 14 new private equity partnerships and $869 million to five real estate partnerships.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• LPs
• Real estate
• Real estate
• The Blackstone Group
• Real estate
• Fundraising
• Asia