Round Hill, Blackstone Sell Multifamily Portfolio for $1.4B
The London-based fund manager and a Blackstone investing platform sold the largest privately held residential portfolio in the Czech Republic to a Scandinavian firm.
Image via Round Hill Capital
After five years of ownership, funds advised by Round Hill Capital and Blackstone Tactical Opportunities have sold its shares of a massive, 4,515-property residential portfolio in the Czech Republic for $1.4 billion to Swedish real estate firm Heimstaden. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of this year.
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The portfolio of high-quality affordable homes totals 42,584 residential units and 1,675 commercial units and is located mainly in the Maravia-Silesia region of the country, which has a population of 1.2 million, making it the most densely populated city in the Czech Republic, after Prague. About one-third of the portfolio is in Ostrava, one of the largest cities in the country and situated roughly 220 miles east of Prague.
Round Hill Capital was advised in the deal by Evercore, Arcadis, PWC, Simpson Thacher and Dentons, while Heimstaden was advised by J.P.Morgan, Clifford Chance, Sentient and EY.
Round Hill and Blackstone first purchased the portfolio back in 2015. After acquiring the portfolio, which at the time was known as RPG Byty but was later rebranded as RESIDOMO, the venture undertook significant renovations as well as implemented social responsibility programs within the portfolio.
Heimstaden CEO Patrick Hall said in prepared remarks that the company is bullish on the Czech Republic’s economy going forward, calling the portfolio buy a “lifetime investment.”
FINDING OPPORTUNITIES
The announcement comes less than a month after Round Hill Capital invested equity capital in a 230-unit multifamily community in Florida that is being developed by Affiliated Development, and several months after teaming up with TPG Real Estate Partners to acquire and renovate student housing properties in Germany.
Eastern Europe’s residential sector has been drawing attention lately. At last fall’s Expo Real in Munich, one of Europe’s biggest annual real estate conferences, participants at one panel discussed a wave of new adaptive reuse developments in the region, including Penta Real Estate’s redevelopment of a former aviation manufacturing facility in Prague into a 650-unit residential community with mixed-use components.
