Pure Industrial REIT has agreed to buy 11 U.S. properties for US$235 million, the Vancouver-based industrial real estate investment trust announced after markets closed on June 19.
The pact follows other major acquisitions that Pure made in the first quarter of 2014.
The first was for a $24-million portfolio of industrial properties. The second transaction was for nine buildings valued at $131 million.
Its new acquisition gives Pure a portfolio consisting of 11 ground-level distribution centres with a total of 1.9 million square feet. The space is leased entirely to a multi-national ground package courier company that Pure did not name in its release.
"I’m sure the name of the courier company will come out in the not too distant future but we didn’t have clearance to announce the name," Pure's investor relations director Andrew Greig told Business in Vancouver.
"It’s one of the top five courier companies. We’re hoping that the 11 assets we announced – some are built and some are under development – are going to lead to more acquisitions through the same group so we wanted to be extra cautious that we didn’t cause any ripples in that relationship as we announce this."
The acquisition is not a surprise, however.
Pure’s CEO Kevan Gorrie told Business in Vancouver in April 2013 that he intended to make a total of $600 million in acquisitions in the calendar year.
Pure’s year-end financial statement showed he was almost bang-on. The company acquired $603.9 million worth of property in 2013, or about double the $300.3 million that it acquired in 2012.
Gorrie last year also told BIV that he wanted the company to have a $1.5 billion market capitalization by the end of 2015.
Pure had a $614.6 million market capitalization at the end of trading on June 19, before the transaction was announced.
When former Vancouverites Stephen Evans and the late Darren Latoski took Pure public in 2007, the company had a $20 million market capitalization.
