Investing giant Goldman Sachs (GS) was all set to buy some 22 U.S. Offices and retail properties from a Swedish pension fund, Alecta.
But a pricing disagreement caused the deal to fall apart—leaving the door open for Blackstone Group, who swooped in to nab the assets for $1.8 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the issue.
Those properties include high-quality shopping centers in California, retail locations housing Sephora and Disney stores in Chicago, and an office building near the White House.
Goldman had originally won the right to buy both the U.S. And U.K. Properties being auctioned off by Alecta. It will still buy the U.K. Assets worth about $450 million, according to the same people.
The disagreement also comes as a setback of sorts for Goldman Sachs, which has been trying to reinvigorate its real estate business which once considered one of its crown jewels. The bank had to significantly pare down its real estate investment arm, Whitehall, during the financial crisis, going from $1.8 billion in assets to $30 million in 2009 due to suffering leveraged property bets. The bank, as a result, disbanded its Whitehall funds and decided to focus on lending rather than buying.
Recently though, the bank has been raising capital. In 2013, Goldman Sachs partnered with Greystar, an U.S. Real estate management firm, to buy a $1.5 billion, 27-property portfolio among other deals.
In 2014, the bank closed fundraising for its second real estate credit fund to $4.2 billion.
Goldman Sachs declined to comment to Coins2Day.
Coins2Day has reached out to BlackStone, and will update if we hear back.
