ESR Cayman has completed the acquisition of ARA Asset Management (ARA) and its subsidiary LOGOS for $5.2bn in a cash and stock transaction.
The deal creates one of the largest asset manager in Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and the third-largest listed real estate investment manager globally with nearly $140bn AUM.
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For the stock component of the deal, ESR issued shares worth $4.7bn, the remaining $519m was paid in cash.
With the completion of the deal, ARA’s business is combined with ESR’s platform under a unified ESR brand.
ESR Group chairman Jeffrey Perlman said: “We are excited to bring together the best-in-class platforms of ESR, ARA and LOGOS to form APAC’s largest real asset manager powered by the New Economy. On the back of the accelerating advancement, broad-based adoption and high-frequency usage of technology, we are witnessing a once-in-a-multi generation change in real estate and our vision is to deliver a fully integrated solution to leading global capital partners and customers.”
ESR co-founders and co-CEOs Stuart Gibson and Jeffrey Shen said: “Global investors are increasingly consolidating their relationships towards a smaller number of large-scale managers with diversified capabilities and strong track records.
“Against this backdrop, ESR is in a prime position to capitalise on this outsized growth, leveraging the expanded scale and offerings of the enlarged platform as APAC’s leading real asset manager to deliver unique ‘one-of-a-kind’ integrated solutions.”
The deal also adds 59 new capital partners to ESR Group’s network, which will allow it to expand its product offering including adding discretionary pan-Asia vehicles for the first time.
ESR currently works with nine of the world’s top 20 capital partners.
