Norges Bank Investment Management, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, is now a minority owner in one of Fullerton’s largest industrial campuses.
It paid more than $1 billion for a 45% ownership stake in a 14-million-square-foot industrial portfolio in a joint venture with Australia-based Goodman Group, whose North American operations are based in Irvine. The logistics portfolio consists of 48 buildings and five land plots in Southern California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The Orange County property included in the portfolio is Goodman Logistics Center Fullerton, 2099 E. Orangethorpe Ave., a Norges Bank spokesperson confirmed. The four-building logistics campus covers 1.5 million square feet over 65 acres.
“The portfolio exemplifies high quality buildings in excellent locations. We have long-term conviction in the investment, and we also see appealing growth potential, given the restrictions on new supply in these locations,” Edward Lerum, Norges Bank Investment Management’s head of global logistics real estate, said in a statement.
Tenants at Goodman Logistics Center Fullerton include Samsung’s 538,226 square feet in building 2 and Bandai Logistics’ 173,825 square feet in building 4, per CoStar data. Samsung also leases all 487,036 square feet of building 3.
Other Southern California properties in the Goodman portfolio are in Compton, Eastvale, Fontana and Santa Fe Springs.
Goodman Group, whose North American operations initially were run under the Goodman Birtcher name, retained its 55% ownership in the joint venture and, according to a Norges Bank Investment Management statement, will oversee the portfolio’s asset management.
Norges Bank said the value of the portfolio it invested in is $3.3 billion, which includes $888 million in existing debt. Norges Bank, which manages Norway’s oil and gas resources, has grown to about $1.7 trillion in assets, according to its webpage.
Goodman Group was founded in Sydney, Australia in 1989 and has since grown its overall portfolio to 416 properties across 15 countries, all worth $78.8 billion.
Its North American portfolio is overseen by domestic CEO Anthony Rozic.
Orange County’s Industrial Market
The Norges Bank acquisition comes amid mixed signals for Orange County’s industrial market.
CBRE, in its latest market report on Orange County’s industrial market, said “activity was continuously slow in 2024, especially in deals over 100,000 square feet.”
“As more spaces hit the market and gave occupiers more options to consider, tenants delayed their decision making, slowing deal velocity and contributing to the negative absorption and rising vacancy,” according to CBRE’s 2024 fourth-quarter report.
Negative absorption occurs when there are more tenants vacating spaces than signing leases.
Many of the leases signed last quarter were smaller than 50,000 square feet, with tenants balking at large deals “due to uncertainty in pricing and continued availability increases,” per CBRE.
2025 U.S. Industrial Market Outlook
Colliers, in its 2025 commercial real estate outlook, predicted the next 12 months would be defined by supply chain agility, automation adaptation, a surge in nearshoring and reshoring, and smaller building footprints.
“Although elevated construction costs and uncertainty around regulatory, fiscal and trade policies could delay some projects, others will move forward, particularly for well-located buildings with smaller footprints,” per the Colliers forecast.
The Colliers forecast also stated the national industrial market would also be defined by improvements in last-mile deliveries, sourcing goods from Mexico instead of China and the increased use of artificial intelligence and “collaborative robots.”
