MetLife & NY Pension Fund Form $1.4B Real Estate JV

MetLife, Inc. announced this week that it had formed a joint real estate venture with New York State Common Retirement Fund, including an initial investment portfolio of seven properties valued at more than $1.4 billion. The portfolio, which MetLife sold a 49.9% stake in to the public pension fund, will be managed by MetLife Investment Management (MIM). The initial portfolio's properties are the PNC Centre in Chicago, Wells Fargo Center in Miami and other properties in San Diego, Atlanta, Arlington, VA, Dallas and San Jose, CA, according to a Pensions & Investments article.

We are very pleased to partner with the New York State Common Retirement Fund on investing in this portfolio of high quality real estate properties," said Robert Merck, senior managing director and head of global real estate for MetLife, in a press release. "We share a strategy of investing for the long term, and we look forward to growing this equity real estate portfolio with them for many years to come." The insurer, which is seeking to expand in asset management, expanded its real estate joint venture in 2014 with Norway's sovereign wealth fund, investing in properties in San Francisco and Washington, according to a Bloomberg report. The announcement of the fund also comes a week after MetLife said it plans to separate a big portion of its U.S. retail business as it fights federal regulators over its "systemically important financial institution" (SIFI) designation.

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MetLife, Panattoni Developing Seattle Industrial Parks

Panattoni Development Company, a privately held, national developer based in Newport Beach, California, and MetLife, Inc. have formed a partnership that will develop three new industrial distribution parks for nearly $63 million in the Seattle area. According to MetLife press release, MetLife will be the majority owner and Panattoni will be the managing minority partner. The greenfield sites will add more than 900,000 square feet of high-quality warehouse space in the Seattle region.

Construction of the three greenfield warehouse sites are expected to be completed mid-year 2015, creating a total of 600 jobs. The largest project is the Des Moines Creek Business Park, which will comprise three buildings totaling 535,830 square feet on a 37-acre site. The two other developments are the Steele Building, which will offer 206,463 square feet of warehouse space on 8.6 acres, and the Tamarack Building, a 159,250-square foot industrial park to be built on 7.0 acres.

"These three industrial parks we are developing in the Seattle area demonstrate our commitment to continuing to diversify our real estate equity holdings through the addition of high quality industrial assets," said Robert Merck, senior managing director and global head of real estate for MetLife. "We have an experienced partner in Panattoni and our national collaboration in the industrial park segment is off to a great start, first in Atlanta and now in Seattle."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

MetLife Building $110M Industrial Park

MetLife announced this week that it will be developing a new industrial distribution park near Atlanta, a $110 million project dubbed the Lambert Farms Distribution Center. The large-scale industrial park will sit on 183 acres and offer up to 3 million square feet of distribution space, accommodating up to two 1.5 million square foot facilities. MetLife is developing the new project with Panattoni Development Company, a privately held, national developer based in Newport Beach, California; MetLife will be the majority partner while Panattoni will be the managing member.

"The Lambert Farms development in the Atlanta area shows that MetLife is further diversifying its real estate equity holdings by adding a high quality industrial asset to our portfolio," said Robert Merck, senior managing director and global head of real estate for MetLife. "Nationally, we think the long-term growth factors for industrial markets in core cities are very positive, and we are excited to have an experienced partner with national reach in Panattoni Development."

The development will feature LEED certified buildings, clear heights of 36 feet and truck court depths of up to 240 feet, making the facility attractive to a wide variety of corporate tenants, The $110 million development is the latest in a string of high-profile economic development projects to be announced for the region's Southside, including a Kroger distribution center at Fort Gillem and the new North American headquarters of Porsche at the former Ford plant, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.