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Blackstone Group cemented its position as the world's biggest private-equity investor in real estate with a global buying spree that includes General Electric Co. assets and a California-based shopping-center owner.
The agreement to buy GE real estate assets valued at $23 billion in a joint deal with Wells Fargo & Co. is the largest real estate transaction since the financial crisis and among the biggest for New York-based Blackstone, whose purchases include the record $39 billion acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust in 2007 and the $26 billion takeover of Hilton Worldwide Inc. the same year.
"This transaction clearly demonstrates the unique scale and reach of our real estate platform," Jon Gray, global head of real estate for Blackstone, said of the GE deal in a statement.
The firm also said it agreed to buy shopping-center owner Excel Trust Inc. for $15.85 a share in cash, or about $2 billion, in one of the two biggest investments to date in its expansion into stable, well-leased real estate. The purchase of San Diego-based Excel will be made with the firm's new Blackstone Property Partners fund. Four other units of Blackstone's real estate division are involved in the GE purchase.
Gray has built Blackstone into the largest global real estate investing business among private-equity firms, overseeing $81 billion...