Proudreed has finalized a record sale of its industrial portfolio and platform to subsidiaries of Blackstone.
Originally scheduled for late 2025, the closing was postponed by a few months to allow local authorities time to process urban preemptive rights, or DIAs. Ultimately, just one property was subject to preemption — a single property located on the outskirts — which was preempted by a tenant holding a purchase option.
The transaction involves more than 500 industrial sites and development projects, totaling 2.2 million square meters across France, with more than a third in the Île-de-France region.
The roadmap remains ambitious. “Our main growth driver is capitalizing on the pipeline of 67 ongoing development projects. This represents approximately 500,000 square meters to be delivered,” explained Christophe Le Corre, president of Proudreed. Over five years, Blackstone aims to accelerate this development volume to reach 115,000 square meters to 120,000 square meters of new properties a year. Alongside these new developments, the company does not rule out acquiring existing real estate portfolios from investors, developers or tenants through sale-leaseback transactions.
The second growth driver involves enhancing the value of the existing portfolio to benefit from positive rent adjustments and maintain the occupancy rate, which stands at 94%, excluding development projects launched from scratch. To achieve this, Proudreed is expected to invest up to €25 million in capital expenditures each year.
“This roadmap should enable us to increase Proudreed’s value within five to six years,” Le Corre added.
The transaction also involves the acquisition of the Proudreed platform, which has 140 employees spread across its Paris headquarters and 10 regional offices. “Proudreed has chosen to integrate development, asset management, and property management functions in order to be as close as possible to tenants and stakeholders,” said Le Corre. This argument won over Blackstone, whose Samir Amichi praised their expertise.
“We were impressed by the Proudreed platform due to its scale, the quality of its assets, and its operational expertise in the French logistics market, which continues to benefit from solid structural trends. Christophe and the entire management team have built a high-quality portfolio, and we believe the platform is well-positioned to pursue controlled growth and continue to strengthen its market position over time,” Amichi, Blackstone’s senior managing director and head of Real Estate Acquisitions Europe, noted.
However, the transaction excludes 250 office and retail sites valued at €750 million, which will continue to be managed by Proudreed pending their sale. “Our goal is to sell them over time, after which Blackstone will take 100% control of Proudreed’s management platform,” explained Le Corre.
The partnership with the investor Partners Group is also not affected by this transaction. This partnership involves the development of business parks valued at approximately €400 million, of which €370 million has been committed to date.
To finance “this record-breaking deal,” Blackstone will arrange new financing by the end of May to replace the existing facilities.
In this transaction, Proudreed was advised by: Morgan Stanley, Clifford Chance, BCLP, LMT, AOS, EY, Forvis Mazars, Squareness, and Étude Lasaygues. On the Blackstone side, the advisors are Société Générale, Barclays STB, DLA Piper, Kirkland & Ellis, Deloitte, Étude Attal & Associés, Arcadis and Nova Ambiente.