
At a time when COVID-19 is pressuring traditional commercial real estate, Blackstone Group, a company that led Wall Street’s initial venture into the single-family rental market, is returning to the business by making a new investment in suburban houses, reports Bloomberg’s Patrick Clark. The private equity giant, which exited its stake in Invitation Homes last year, is leading a group of investors in a $300 million minority investment in Tricon Residential, an owner and manager of more than 30,000 single-family rental homes and multifamily units in North America.
The deal—made through Blackstone’s nontraded real estate investment trust, known as BREIT—is for preferred shares issued by a Tricon subsidiary that can be exchanged for a minority investment in the Toronto-based company, according to a statement Thursday announcing the deal. Tricon said it plans to use the capital to pay down debt.
“We continue to see strong underlying fundamentals in the rental-housing sector, and believe the company’s high-quality, income-generating assets are poised to generate stable performance under the leadership of its best-in-class management team,” Frank Cohen, chief executive officer of BREIT, said in the statement.
Read More