The giant New York-based alternative investment management company Blackstone Inc. is purchasing Dallas-based marina operator Safe Harbor Marinas in a multi-billion dollar deal.
Safe Harbor owns and operates 138 marinas in the United States and Puerto Rico, ranking itself as the “largest marina and superyacht serving business in the United States.”
Funds managed by Blackstone will pay the seller Sun Communities Inc. $5.65 billion for the marina operator in a deal expected to close in the second quarter. Notably, this represents a substantial jump in value compared to the last time the operator traded hands.
In 2020, Safe Harbour purchased the operator from Weatherford Capital for $2.11 billion, less than half its current purchase price. However, the company has expanded since the previous transaction, purchasing assets like Puerto Del Rey Marina in Puerto Rico and Lauderdale Marine Center in Florida.
Southfield, Missouri-based Sun Communities is reportedly unloading Safe Harbor Marinas in order to shift focus to its manufactured housing and recreational vehicle business.
Blackstone, on the other hand, has been growing its infrastructure business. As of the end of 2024, the investment firm managed $55 billion in infrastructure assets, growing roughly 40% year-over-year since inception, according to Blackstone.
One of Blackstone’s senior managing directors, Heidi Boyd, said the asset management firm is bullish on the marina business.
“We believe Safe Harbor is the best positioned company in this sector, and we look forward to working with their terrific team to invest behind their existing marinas and to expand their footprint,” she said in a statement, per the Dallas Business Journal.
The alternative asset manager also owns Quality Technology Services (QTS), a real estate investment company focused on data centers based in Overland Park, Kansas. Blackstone acquired QTS for $10 billion in 2021 and has continued to expand its data center footprint considerably, including here in North Texas.
Late last year, The Dallas Express reported that QTS and Microsoft were planning a massive project in Irving, building a combined one million-plus square feet of new data center space.