KKR to buy Japanese real estate asset manager for $2 billion

FILE PHOTO: Trading information for KKR & Co is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., August 23, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

(Reuters) -KKR & Co said on Thursday it is buying Japanese real estate asset manager Mitsubishi Corp-UBS Realty Inc (MC-UBSR) for 230 billion yen ($1.94 billion), deepening the U.S. private equity firm's presence in Japan.

KKR will buy MC-UBSR from Mitsubishi Corp and UBS Asset Management. MC-UBSR was founded in 2000 as a joint venture between the two companies, and is currently one of the largest real estate asset managers in Japan with 1.7 trillion yen in assets under management.

"Japan is one of the most important and high-volume real estate markets in the world, and is a market we have been dedicated to investing in with a local team since 2006," said Hiro Hirano, CEO of KKR Japan.

The all-cash deal is expected to be immediately accretive to KKR on a fee related earnings per share basis, the companies said in a joint statement.

The acquisition will expand KKR's $41 billion global real estate business to $55 billion.

($1 = 118.8000 yen)

(Reporting by Arundhati Dutta in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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