Dubai, United Arab Emirates: CenterSquare Investment Management announced the launch of a Service Properties’ Joint Venture (the JV) with a Middle Eastern capital partner. The JV has the ability to acquire up to $125 million in assets. Greenstone Equity Partners led CenterSquare’s capital raising across the GCC.
The JV is focused on acquiring and building a diversified portfolio of US-based Retail Class A properties. Service Properties, a niche sector of Retail, comprise institutional quality, multi-tenant shopping centers leased to businesses whose customers must visit the store to consume the service. Deemed “essential” during the COVID-19 quarantine, many of these businesses remained open in 2020 and include national and regional brands that offer quick service dining, beauty, fitness, health, and professional services. The JV is targeting unanchored properties that are located on well trafficked, highly visible street corners in growing cities throughout the US Sunbelt region. This strategy continues to attract investment interest from the GCC investor community.
“Given changing consumer patterns and meaningful tailwinds behind the growth of the service sector, we continue to view Service Property investment opportunities as some of the most attractive risk-adjusted returns in the market today, ” said Robert Holuba, Senior Vice President of CenterSquare Private Equity Real Estate. “We were pleased to partner with Greenstone to gain access to a base of investors who found the investment thesis to be compelling and we look forward to continuing to grow the strategy and our relationships across the GCC.”
Following six acquisitions, the JV continues to actively invest and acquire Service Properties throughout the US. After their joint success in 2021, CenterSquare and Greenstone Equity Partners are bringing further innovative investment opportunities to the region’s investor community. CenterSquare’s private real estate debt strategy provides high-yield mezzanine financing for value-add properties within multifamily, industrial and office space in the U.S., and is expected to gain considerable interest from investors across the GCC.
Alex Gemici, Chief Executive Officer of Greenstone said, “After the successful capital raise of the CenterSquare Service Retail JV, we are excited to provide our investors access to CenterSquare’s high-yield debt strategy.”