Canadian Pension Capital Flows into Lineage Logistics
Posted on 09/17/2020
In its first investment in the cold storage logistics sector, Oxford Properties Group made a US$ 360 million investment into Lineage Logistics, a provider of temperature-controlled logistics solutions. Lineage Logistics owns and operates over 1.9 billion cubic feet and 56 million square feet of temperature-controlled capacity across more than 320 facilities in 13 countries, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. As a result of its investment, Michael Turner, Oxford’s President will be appointed to the Lineage board of Directors.
Lineage Logistics was founded by Bay Grove Capital in 2008 with a single cold storage facility in Seattle, Washington.
Lineage Logistics in total raised US$ 1.6 billion from investors, including Oxford Properties at US$ 360 million). The other investors are BentallGreenOak, D1 Capital Partners, Cohen & Steers, OPTrust (OPSEU Pension Trust), CenterSquare Investment Management, and investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value.
Advisors
Morgan Stanley and Eastdil Secured acted as placement agents, and Latham & Watkins LLP served as legal counsel for Lineage Logistics.
Logistics and Oxford Properties
At the start of 2018, logistics represented only 4% of Oxford’s assets. At the moment, Oxford is rapidly closing in on its ambition to have approximately a third of its deployed equity in the logistics. Oxford Properties Group is owned by OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System). In July, Oxford made a follow-on investment in ESR, an APAC logistics real estate provider of US$ 493 million and became its largest institutional shareholder. Oxford was a cornerstone investor in ESR’s IPO to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 2019.