Warehouses, student accommodation and hospitality assets, where cash flows are growing, will perform strongly in an era of higher financing costs even as other property sub-sectors struggle, Blackstone’s global co-head of real estate, Kathleen McCarthy, says.
“That [success] informs our view going forward that we want to be in more kinds of things like logistics, student housing, hospitality, data centres, places where there a number of tailwinds even in this kind of environment,” she said., which the firm is focusing on reviving by drawing on its expertise turning around other big operators like The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, which it sold in 2021 for $US5.65 billion.
“And so when you zoom back and see how we got to a portfolio which is 40 per cent concentrated in logistics, [it is because] we were looking at the data and leasing demand.” Ms McCarthy also flagged further investment in build-to-rent in Australia, telling the summit that Blackstone could bring “deep expertise” into the sector locally.