Brookfield Asset Management has bought a majority stake in a portfolio of 33 modern light industrial assets in Greater Stockholm and Mälardalen, west of Stockholm, from EQT.
Both EQT and Brookfield declined to comment on the price of the transaction. However, affiliate title PERE Deals understands it to be approximately SKr2.1 billion ($221 million; €192 million).
EQT, which owned the portfolio with Swedish asset manager Broadgate as a minority investor and asset manager, tried to sell the portfolio for the first time in early 2022 without success, according to sources familiar with the matter. The manager then opted to refinance the portfolio and to further develop it. EQT started marketing the portfolio again in early 2025.
EQT owned the portfolio within its EQT Real Estate II fund, according to a statement issued by the seller.
Brookfield has made the investment on behalf of its Real Estate Secondaries fund.
With the BRES fund, the manager focuses on recapitalisations whereby it buys investors’ equity positions and partners with the initial manager to improve assets already midway through their business plans.
Brookfield typically takes an equity stake of at least 90 percent as well as control of financial decisions, business plans and exit timing, while the original manager oversees day-to-day operations.
Brookfield launched its global fund in January 2022 and reached a final close of $1.3 billion in August 2024, according to data from affiliate PERE.
BRES is around 93 percent deployed, with two-thirds of its assets located in the US and the remainder spread around the UK, Germany and Sweden. As of Q3, it was 55 percent invested in logistics and 45 percent invested in student housing and multifamily assets, according to previous reporting by PERE.
Brookfield is currently raising capital for a second iteration of the global fund, targeting $2 billion in commitments, according to PERE data.
In the instance of the Swedish deal, Brookfield has several avenues to unlock the value-add strategy. First, a number of leases expire over the next five years, opening the door to potential rent resets. Another option is to increase occupancy across the portfolio.
The firm could also pursue opportunistic sales of selected properties which have achieved their business plans, Alexis Prevot, managing director at Brookfield, told PERE Deals.
The portfolio, which is 90 leased to approximately 150 tenants, totals 1.5 million square feet and largely comprises warehouses, light industrial properties and other last-mile uses with high occupancy rates.
“The performance of these Swedish logistics real estate assets has been underpinned by continued growth in strategically targeted cities located in proximity to logistics and industrial sub-markets,” Olivier Astruc, managing director at EQT, said in the statement.
The net initial annual yield is between 6 and 7 percent, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Other transactions on behalf of Brookfield’s real estate secondaries strategy include a 752-unit build-to-rent multifamily development in Cologne, and a portfolio of seven standing industrial logistics, with six assets located in Germany and one in Austria with Hamburg-based manager Garbe Industrial Real Estate.
Brookfield also formed a joint venture with Garbe to invest more than €100 million in industrial, value-add pipeline opportunities in select European markets with five development projects currently.
Secondaries transactions continue to drive transaction volumes globally, as traditional real estate deals have dwindled over recent years, Prevot highlighted.
A report published in 2024 by Ares Management estimates that the real estate secondaries deal volume reached a record $14.6 billion last year, up nearly 50 percent from 2023 and beating the prior high-water mark of $12.4 billion reached in 2022.
Meanwhile, overall real estate transaction volumes are predicted to total $410 billion this year, according to Avison Young, the third-lowest total since at least 2018.
Brookfield manages $275 billion of real estate assets globally.