(Bloomberg)—Investcorp Holdings BSC bought five garden-style apartment properties for $330 million in the U.S., as multifamily assets attract investor interest during a pandemic that has made residential real estate more appealing than offices, hotels and malls.
The properties include more than 1,800 units across the suburbs of Atlanta, Baltimore and Jacksonville, Florida, and are focused on middle-income renters, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the transactions were private.
Bahrain-based Investcorp, the biggest private equity and alternative asset manager in the Middle East, confirmed the purchase in a stock market filing. Investcorp’s U.S. multifamily real estate portfolio now comprises more than 14,000 units across about 40 properties, it said.
Investcorp, which oversees $33 billion, narrowed its real estate strategy in 2014 to focus on multifamily and industrial properties. That shift has worked out well in a pandemic that has had a disproportionate impact on retail and lodging real estate.
While affluent exiles from New York and Silicon Valley have grabbed headlines in recent months, investors are focusing bets on demand in the Sunbelt from middle-class workers who can’t afford a down payment on a home.
Apartment owners had collected 88.6% of this month’s rent as of Jan. 20, down 2.5 percentage points from the previous year, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council.
Suburban markets have fared better, pushing institutional capital to seek opportunities in single-family rentals and garden apartments.
Investcorp has been a seller as well as a buyer. In November, the firm announced it had sold eight apartment portfolios, spread across Arizona, California, Florida and New York, for more than $900 million.
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