Blackstone Creates New Brand

Investment powerhouse Blackstone has combined three of its portfolio companies to create Perform Properties, a new entity/brand encompassing EQ Office, ShopCore Properties and Retail Opportunity Investments Corp.

Blackstone itself appears to have not yet made an official announcement on its plans.

Alex Vouvalides, who was CEO of ShopCore and EQ Office, has taken the same role at Perform.

“Born from the combined strength of ShopCore, ROIC and EQ Office, Perform brings together decades of experience across office and retail—united by a shared commitment to creating spaces that genuinely support the people and businesses they’re built for.” Vouvalides wrote in a LinkedIn post Friday.

He also touted Perform’s total of more than 33 million square feet of office and retail space across the U.S.

Of Perform’s three pillars, ROIC is the newcomer. Blackstone Real Estate Partners X had agreed last November to acquire ROIC for $4 billion in an all-cash transaction, an amount that represented a 34 percent premium to ROIC’s share price the previous July. ROIC’s portfolio comprised 93 grocery-anchored retail properties totaling 10.5 million square feet across four major West Coast metros.

That’s apparently in addition to ShopCore’s 150-plus properties totaling more than 19 million square feet of open-air retail in more than 30 markets nationwide.

Transactions larger and smaller

Last October, EQ Office sold Highland Corporate Center, a 211,000-square-foot office campus in San Diego, to a joint venture between Harbor Associates and F&F Capital Group for $77 million. EQ Office had acquired the property as part of a $3.3 billion portfolio transaction encompassing 136 properties in two dozen metros nationwide.

In a sign of Blackstone’s breadth, if any such were needed, the company just last week provided $925 million in debt financing to Internet service provider, and King Street affiliate, Colovore, which will deploy the funding to develop new liquid-cooled data centers in multiple markets, starting with Reno, Nev.; Chicago; and Austin, Texas.