JR AMC tipped to buy Amazon logistics center in Ohio

South Korea’s JR AMC Co. has been named the preferred buyer of Amazon’s last-mile logistics center in central Ohio, for which the Seoul-based asset manager offered around 68 billion won ($61 million).

JR is expecting to close the purchase from a US developer around next month and to sell down 25 billion won worth of its equity interest to domestic investors, according to financial investment industry sources on Feb. 2.

The recently built facility is located at 501 Sunbury Road in Colombus, the state's capital, and is in a 10-year contract with the US e-commerce giant.
 
It has a floor area of 27,819 square meters on land measuring 115,500 square meters, a six- to seven-minute drive from downtown Columbus.

“Generally, last-mile logistics centers are 20 to 25 minutes away from downtown by car. Compared to them, the Columbus-based last-mile service center has good accessibility to downtown,” said one of the sources.

The logistics center seems unlikely to be included in the portfolio of JR Global REIT Co., given its much smaller asset size than the Finance Tower in Brussels, the underlying asset of the REIT, according to the industry sources.

JR Global REIT is backed by the large office building in Belgium for which it paid $1.6 billion in 2019. It became South Korea’s first listed REIT last year.

Amazon-leased logistics centers have been at the top of Korean investors' buying lists, with the coronavirus pandemic driving e-commerce growth even higher. They provide investors with steady income streams and are easier to sell than other properties.

In 2019, Seoul-based IGIS Asset Management Co. launched the country's first retail fund investing in Amazon's logistics centers and raised 230 billion won from the fund as planned.

Write to Seon-Pyo Hong at rickey@hankyung.com
 

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.