Ares REIT Adds $473M of Whitestone Retail as NAV Climbs to $3.89B

Ares Real Estate Income Trust acquired roughly 28% of the former Whitestone REIT portfolio – nine stabilized, core-plus retail centers in Arizona and Texas – for about $473 million, its share of a $1.7 billion take-private led by affiliates of its sponsor, the company said.

The nontraded REIT, known as AREIT, disclosed the purchase as part of an update to its net asset value and portfolio. It participated through a joint venture with a private fund affiliated with its sponsor, Ares Management Corporation. The nine properties comprise about 1 million square feet of grocery-anchored and unanchored, service-oriented centers, the company said.

The acquisition is AREIT’s piece of Ares Management’s buyout of Whitestone REIT (NYSE: WSR), an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.7 billion, or $19.00 per share and operating partnership unit, that closed on July 14. According to the companies’ public announcements, the price represented a 12.2% premium to Whitestone’s April 8 closing price and a 26.5% premium to its price before a March report that the company was exploring a sale. Whitestone, a community-centered owner of open-air retail centers in Sun Belt markets, was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange at closing. The properties AREIT acquired fit its focus on necessity-oriented retail; because the co-investment pairs the nontraded REIT with an affiliated Ares fund, it is a related-party transaction.

Separately, AREIT expanded its operating partnership in June through its Delaware statutory trust program. The company issued 25 million operating partnership units in exchange for DST interests for a net investment of $200 million, plus $1 million in cash – an UPREIT-style exchange that brings interests raised through the DST program into the operating partnership. AREIT’s DST program carries financing obligations of about $2.6 billion, against total investments of roughly $9.14 billion.

Those transactions, together with continued fundraising, lifted AREIT’s total net asset value to about $3.89 billion as of June 30, up roughly 12.5% from about $3.46 billion a month earlier. The increase was driven by the DST exchange and net capital inflows rather than portfolio markups: NAV per share was $8.2229 at June 30, up about 0.4% from $8.1908 at May 31.

AREIT is a perpetual-life, nontraded REIT advised by an affiliate of Ares Management, and invests in stabilized, income-generating real estate along with real estate debt and securities. AltsWire reported in April that the REIT posted a 45% year-over-year jump in industrial rents and raised $401 million in the first quarter. AltsWire also reported in June that AREIT had received $400 million in equity commitments from Ares-affiliated entities since October 2025.

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