Ares, PSP Investments Launch $2.4B Logistics Joint Venture
The venture targets cash-flowing warehouse assets in high-growth markets, run through Ares' Marq Logistics platform.
Ares Management and PSP Investments have formed a joint venture to invest up to $2.4 billion in U.S. logistics real estate, seeded with a 14-property, 5.2 million-square-foot portfolio spread across California, Texas and New Jersey.
Why it matters
The venture is a fresh signal that institutional capital still wants scaled exposure to warehouse and distribution assets even as new industrial construction has slowed nationally. For developers courting equity right now, the structure matters as much as the size: Ares Real Estate will source and manage the deals through its Marq Logistics platform, while PSP Investments, one of Canada’s largest pension investors, supplies scaled capital behind an existing relationship between the two firms. That is the template developers should expect from large allocators over the next cycle, a named operating platform paired with a patient capital partner, rather than a one-off fund raise. The seed markets, California, Texas and New Jersey, are established coastal and Sun Belt logistics hubs, and South Florida is notably absent from the initial footprint, even as Ares’ own Miami Beach office closed a separate $108.7 million buy of two fully leased Hialeah and Sweetwater warehouses from BGRE less than two weeks earlier.
The numbers
The joint venture can deploy up to $2.4 billion. Its seed portfolio holds 14 properties totaling 5.2 million square feet across the three named states. Ares reported $671 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2026. Eastdil Secured Savills and Kirkland & Ellis advised Ares; Cushman & Wakefield and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson advised PSP Investments.
What’s next
Dave Fazekas, Ares Real Estate’s head of North America logistics, said the venture “underscores the strong positioning that Ares has established across our U.S. logistics footprint.” Watch whether the partnership expands beyond its three seed states, and whether South Florida industrial, where Ares has now bought twice this year, becomes a future target rather than a market the venture is passing over. Developers in the South Florida industrial pipeline should read the seed list as a sign of where the largest checks are clearing first, not where they stop.